Turretin - Justification

Turrettin

on Justification

Francis Turrettin

2009

Doxa Digital Press

Lake Monroe, FL

Front Matter

Turrettin on Justification

Translated by George Musgrave Giger

Sixteenth Topic of Institutes of Elenctic Theology

Lake Monroe, FL

Doxa Digital Press

2009

Front Matter .................................................................................................................................. 2

1. Justification As Forensic .................................................................................................. 4

2. A False Foundation ................................................................................................................ 9

3. The True Foundation ............................................................................................................ 21

4. Remission and Adoption ...................................................................................................... 35

5. The Remission of Sins ........................................................................................................ 40

6. Adoption .................................................................................................................................. 49

7. The Justification of Faith .............................................................................................. 53

8. Justification by Faith Alone .......................................................................................... 62

9. The Time of Justification ................................................................................................ 72

10. The Unity of Justification ............................................................................................ 77

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1.

Justification As Forensic

Is the word justification always used in a forensic sense in this argument, or

also in a moral and physical? The former we affirm, the latter we deny, against

the Romanists.

As in the chain of salvation justification follows vocation, Rom. 8:30, and is

everywhere set forth as the primary effect of faith, the topic concerning vocation

and faith begets the topic concerning justification, which must be handled with

the greater care and accuracy as this saving doctrine is of the greatest importance

in religion. It is called by Luther, the article of a standing and falling church; by

other Christians it is termed the characteristic and basis of Christianity not

without reason, the principal rampart of the Christian religion, and, it being

adulterated or subverted, it is impossible to retain purity of doctrine in other

places. Whence Satan in every way has endeavored to corrupt this doctrine in all

ages; as has been done especially in the Papacy: for which reason it is deservedly

placed among the primary causes of our secession from the Romish Church and

of the Reformation.

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Although, however, some of the more candid Romanists, conquered by the

force of the truth, have felt and expressed themselves more soundly than

others concerning this article; nor are there wanting also some among our

divines, who influenced by a desire to lessen controversies, think there

is not so great matter for dispute about it, and that there are here not

a few logomachies: still it is certain that up to this time there are

between us and the Romanists in this argument controversies not verbal,

but real, many and of great importance, as will be made manifest in what

follows.

Because from a false and preposterous explanation of the word, the truth

of the thing itself has been wonderfully obscured, in the first place,

its genuine sense, and in this question most especially, must be unfolded,

which being settled we will be able the more easily to reach the nature

of the thing itself.

The verb htsdyq, to which the Greek dikaioun answers, and the Latin justificare, is used in two ways in the Scriptures, properly and improperly. Properly the verb is forensic, put for to absolve any one in

a trial, or to hold and to declare just, as opposed to the verb to condemn

and to accuse, Exod. 23:7, Deut. 25:1, Prov. 17:15, Luke 18:14, Rom. 3–5.

Thence apart from a trial it is used for to acknowledge and to praise one

as just, and that too, either deservedly, as when it is terminated on God,

in which way men are said to justify God, when they celebrate him as just,

Ps. 51:4; wisdom is said to be justified of her children, Matt. 11:19,

Luke 7:35, that is acknowledged and celebrated as such, or presumptuously,

as the Pharisees are said to justify themselves. Luke 16:15. Improperly

it is used either ministerially, for to bring to righteousness, Dan. 12:3,

where mtsdyqy seems to be exegetical of mskylym; because while the preachers of the gospel instruct and teach believers, by this very thing

they justify them ministerially, to wit, by teaching

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them the true way in which they can be justified, in the same sense in which they

are said to save them, 1 Tim. 4:16. Or by way of synecdoche, the antecedent being

put for the consequent, for to free, Rom. 6:7, “He that is dead is justified from

sin,” that is, freed. Or comparatively, Ezek. 16:51, 52, where on account of a

comparison between the sins of Israel and Samaria, Israel is said to justify

Samaria, and, the sins of Judah increasing, Judah is said to have justified Israel,

Jer. 3:11, because Israel was more just than Judah, that is, her sins were fewer

than the sins of Judah.

Hence arises the Question with the Romanists, concerning the acceptation

of this word, whether it is to be taken precisely in a forensic sense,

in this affair; or, whether it ought also to be taken in a physical and

moral sense for the infusion of righteousness and justification, if it

is allowable so to speak, either by the acquisition or the increase of

it? For they do not deny, indeed, that the word justificatio and the verb justificare are often taken in a forensic sense, and even in this affair, as Bellarmine, lib. i, de Justif., cap. i. Tirin., Contro. 15, nu. 1,

Tolet., ad Rom. ii., Anno 13, and many others. But they do not wish this

to be the constant meaning but that it often signifies a true production,

acquisition, or increase of righteousness, and this is especially the case,

when employed about the justification of man before God. Whence they

distinguish justification into first and second. The first is that by

which man who is unjust is made just, the second, by which a just man is

made more just. Whence Bellarmine, lib. ii, cap. 2, “Justification

undoubtedly is a certain movement from sin to righteousness, and takes

its name from the terminus to which it leads, as all other similar motions,

illumination, calefaction; that is true justification, where some

righteousness is acquired beyond the remission of sin.” Thomas Aquinas,

1, 2, q. 113, “Justification taken passively implies a motion to making

righteous, just as calefaction a motion to heat.” Now although we do not

deny that this word has

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more than one signification, and is taken in different ways in the Scriptures, now

properly, then improperly, as we have already said, still we maintain that it is

never taken for an infusion of righteousness, but always as often as the Scriptures

speak professedly concerning our justification, it must be explained as a forensic

term.

The reasons are: 1. Because the passages, which treat of justification,

admit no other than a forensic sense, Job 9:3, Ps. 143:2, Rom. 3:28, and

4:1–3, Acts 13:39, and elsewhere, where a judicial process is set forth,

and mention is made of an accusing law, of accused persons, who are guilty,

Rom. 3:19, of a handwriting contrary to us, Col. 2:14, of divine justice

demanding punishment, Rom. 3:24, 26, of an advocate pleading the cause,

1 John 2:1, of satisfaction and imputed righteousness, Rom. 4–5; of a

throne of grace before which we are absolved, Heb. 4:16, of a judge

pronouncing sentence, Rom. 3:20, and absolving sinners, Rom. 4:5.

2. Because justification is here opposed to condemnation; “Who shall lay

anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who

is he that condemneth?” Rom. 8:33, 34. As therefore accusation and

condemnation occur only in a trial; so also justification. Nor can it be

conceived how God can be said to condemn or to justify, unless either by

adjudging to punishment, or absolving us from it judicially, which Toletus

is compelled to confess on this passage; “The word justification in this

place is taken with that signification, which is opposed to its antithesis,

namely, condemnation, so that it is the same in this place to justify as

to pronounce just, as a judge by his sentence absolves and pronounces

innocent.” Cornelius a Lapide, who otherwise earnestly strives to

obscure the truth, still overcome by the force of the truth, acknowledges

that God justifies, that is, absolves the threatened action of sin and

the devil, and pronounces just.

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3. Because the equivalent phrases, by which our justification is described;

such as not to come into judgment, John 5:24; not to be condemned, John

3:18; to remit sins, to impute righteousness, Rom. 4; to be reconciled,

Rom. 5:10, 2 Cor. 5:19; and the like. 4. This word ought to be employed

in the sense in which it was used by Paul in his dispute against the Jews;

And yet it is certain that he did not speak there of an infusion of

righteousness, viz., whether from faith, or from the works of the law the

habit of righteousness should be infused into man, but how the sinner could

stand before the judgment seat of God, and obtain a right to life, whether

by the works of the law, as the Jews imagined, or by faith in Christ; and

since the thought concerning justification arose without doubt from a fear

of divine judgment, and of the wrath to come, it cannot be used in any

other than a forensic sense; as it was used in the origin of those questions,

which were agitated in a former age upon the occasion of Indulgences,

satisfactions and remission of sins. 5. Finally, unless this word is taken

in a forensic sense, it would be confounded with sanctification, and that

these are distinct, both the nature of the thing and the voice of Scripture

frequently prove.

Although the word justification in certain passages of scripture should

recede from its proper signification, and be taken in another than a

forensic sense, it would not follow that it is taken judicially by us

falsely, because the proper sense is to be looked to in those passages

in which is the seat of this doctrine. 2. Although perchance it should

not be taken precisely in a forensic sense, for to pronounce just, and

to absolve in a trial, still we maintain that it cannot be taken in a

physical sense for the infusion of righteousness, as the Romanists hold,

as is easily proved from the passages brought by Bellarmine himself.

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For, in Isa. 53:11, where it is said Christ by his knowledge shall justify

many; it is manifest that reference is made to the meritorious and

instrumental cause of our absolution with God, namely, Christ, and the

knowledge or belief of him. For the knowledge of Christ here ought not

to be taken subjectively, concerning the knowledge by which he knows what

was agreed upon between himself and the Father, which has nothing to do

with our satisfaction. But objectively, concerning that knowledge, by

which he is known by his people unto salvation, which is nothing else than

faith, to which justification is everywhere ascribed. The following words

show that no other sense is to be sought, when it is added, for he shall

bear their iniquities, to denote the satisfaction of Christ, which faith

ought to embrace, in order that we may be justified.

No more does the passage of Daniel 12:3 press us. Because, as we have

already said, justification is ascribed to the ministers of the gospel,

as elsewhere the salvation of believers, 1 Tim. 4:16, 1 Cor. 9:22. Not

assuredly by an infusion of habitual righteousness, which does not come

within their power; but by the instruction of believers, by which, as they

open the way of life, so they teach the mode, by which sinners can obtain

justification in Christ by faith. Whence the Vulgate does not translate

it justificantes, but erudientes ad justitiam.

The passage, Rev. 22:11, he that is righteous, let him be righteous still,

does not favor our opponents, so as to denote an infusion or increase of

righteousness. Because thus it would be tautological with the following

words, he that is holy, let him be holy still, for that justification would

not differ from sanctification. But it is best to refer it to the

application and sense of justification, for although on the part of God

justification does not take place successively, still on our part, it is

apprehended by us by varied and repeated actions, while by new acts of

faith we apply to ourselves from time

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to time the merit of Christ as a remedy for the daily sins into which we fall. Nay,

although it should be granted that the exercise of righteousness is here meant, as

in a manuscript we have dikaiosynēn poiēsatō, that it may be opposed to the

preceding words. He that is unjust, let him be more unjust, the opinion of the

Romanists will not on that account be established.

The justification of the wicked, of which Paul speaks, Rom. 4:5, ought

not to be referred to an infusion or increase of habitual righteousness,

but belongs to the remission of sins, as it is explained by the apostle

from David. Nay, it would not be a justification of the wicked, if it were

used in any other sense than for a judicial absolution at the throne of

grace. I confess that God in declaring just, ought also for that very

reason to make just, that his judgment may be according to truth. But man

can be made just in two ways, either in himself, or in another, either

from the law, or from the gospel. God therefore makes him just whom he

justifies, not in himself as if from a sight of his inherent righteousness

he declared him just, but from the view of the righteousness, imputed,

of Christ. It is indeed an abomination to Jehovah to justify the wicked

without a due satisfaction, but God in this sense justifies no wicked one,

Christ having been given to us as a surety, who received upon himself the

punishment we deserved.

Although certain words of the same order with justification denote an

effecting in the subject, there is not the same reason for this, which

otherwise barbarous has been received into latinity, to express the force

of htsdyq and dikaioun, neither of which admit a physical sense. Thus we magnify and justify God, not by making him great from small, or just from

unjust, but only declaratively celebrating him as such.

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2.

A False Foundation

Is the impulsive and meritorious cause, on account of which man is justified in

the judgment of God, inherent righteousness infused into us, or good works? We

deny against the Romanists.

Since it is evident from the preceding question that the word justification is

forensic, and is taken judicially here, because it relates to the manner in which

sinful man can stand before the bar of God, and obtain the pardon of sin with a

right to life; we must inquire before all things, what is the foundation of this

justification, or what is the true and proper meritorious cause, in view of which he

is absolved by God from sin and adjudged to life. Concerning this we must firstly

treat negatively according to the Pauline method, in order that we may see, in

what it does not consist; secondly, affirmatively, in what it does consist.

We must, however, premise here, that God, the just judge, cannot pronounce

any one just, and give him a right to life, except on the ground of some

perfect righteousness, which has a necessary connection with life; but

that righteousness is not of one kind. For as there are two

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covenants, which God willed to make with men, the one legal, and the other of

grace, so also there is a two-fold righteousness, legal and evangelical, according to

which there is also a double justification, or a double method of standing before

God in judgment, legal and evangelical. The former consists in one’s own

obedience, or a perfect conformity with the law, which is in him who is to be

justified; the latter in another’s obedience, or a perfect observance of the law,

which is rendered by a surety in the place of him who is to be justified. The

former in us, the latter in Christ. Concerning the first Paul treats, Rom. 2:13, “Not

the hearers, but the doers of the law shall be justified,” and 10:5, “Moses

describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those

things, shall live by them.” Concerning the other, Rom. 1:16, 17, “The Gospel is the

power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, for therein is the

righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall

live by faith.” And 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace, through the

redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Concerning both, Phil. 3:9, “That I may be

found in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that

which is through the faith of Christ,” and Rom. 9:30, 31. Whence a twofold

justification flows, one in the legal covenant by one’s own righteousness

according to the clause, Do this and live, the other in the covenant of grace, by

another’s righteousness, Christ’s imputed to us, and apprehended by faith

according to the clause, Believe and thou shalt be saved. Each demands a perfect

righteousness, but the former requires it in the man to be justified, but the latter

admits the vicarious righteousness of a surety. That could have place in a state of

innocence if Adam had remained in innocence. But because after sin it became

impossible to man, we must fly

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to the other, that is, the gospel, which is founded upon the righteousness of

Christ.

This being established, the question is not concerning legal

justification; for we confess that in it inherent righteousness is its

meritorious cause, nor can it be obtained by the perfect obedience of man.

But because, the law having now become weak by sin, this method of

justification is impossible, we treat of the evangelical, proposed to us

in the covenant of grace, which we deny to be founded in inherent

righteousness.

The question is not, whether inherent righteousness is infused into us

through the grace of Christ, by whose intervention we are made partakers

of the divine nature, 2 Pet. 1:4, and obtain a true and real holiness

pleasing and acceptable to God, by which we are properly denominated just

and holy. For whatever the opponents may calumniously charge upon the

orthodox, to wit, that we allow of no inherent righteousness as Bellarmine,

lib. ii. de Justifi., cap.1, and others after him, it is surely a most

foul calumny, the falsity is proved from the writings of our divines

whether public or private, in which everywhere and with common consent

they teach that the benefits of justification and sanctification are so

indissolubly connected with each other, that God justifies no one, without

equally sanctifying him, and giving inherent righteousness by the

creation of a new man in true righteousness and holiness. But the question

is, whether that inherent righteousness, such as exists in believers on

earth, enters into our justification, either as its cause, or as a part,

so that it constitutes some part of our justification, and is the

meritorious cause and foundation of our absolving sentence in the judgment

of God. For the Romanists, as they pretend that justification consists

of two parts, remission of sin, and internal renovation of mind, so they

assert that the cause on account of which God justifies us is the

righteousness of God, which, infused into us,

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constitutes us internally righteous. For although they do not appear to exclude

entirely the righteousness of Christ, inasmuch as they hold that by it he merited

that God should communicate to us by the Holy Spirit internal righteousness, and

thus it is a condition of the formal cause, that is, of inherent righteousness, that it

may be given to man; still they maintain that the right to seek life depends upon

inherent righteousness, and that on account of it God justifies us.

This is evident from the Council of Trent, Sess. 6. cap. 4, where “the

justification of the wicked is said to be the translation from that state

in which man is born a son of the first Adam, into a state of grace and

the adoption of the sons of God by the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our

Saviour. This translation indeed, after the promulgation of the gospel,

cannot be made, without the washing of regeneration, or a desire for it”

and so forth. And cap. 7, “Justification itself follows this disposition

or preparation, which is not only the remission of sin, but also

sanctification and the renovation of the inward man by a voluntary

reception of grace and gifts, by which a person who was unjust is made

just, and instead of an enemy becomes a friend, so that he is an heir

according to the hope of eternal life,” etc. and afterwards, “The formal

cause of it is the righteousness of God, not that by which he is himself

righteous, but that by which he makes us righteous; and by which, bestowed

upon us as his gift, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and are

not only accounted, but are truly called, and are righteous, receiving

each of us righteousness in ourselves according to our measure, which the

Spirit distributes to every man as he wills, and according to the peculiar

disposition and co-operation of every man.” And Canon 11: “If any man

shall say that men are justified solely by the imputation of the

righteousness of Christ, or solely by the remission of sins to the

exclusion of grace and charity, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the

Spirit, and is inherent in them, or even that the grace by which we are

justified is only the favor

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of God, let him be accursed.” From these declarations it is evident that the

Council held that inherent righteousness is the cause on account of which we are

justified. Nor ought we to be deceived by their seeming distinction between the

formal and the meritorious cause; the one indeed being Christ, but the other

infused righteousness. Because since they speak of justification before God, the

formal cause cannot be distinguished from the meritorious, because in this

respect the formal cause is nothing else than that in view of which God frees us

from condemnation, and receives to eternal life.

The orthodox, on the other hand, think far differently. For although they

do not deny that inherent righteousness was purchased for us by the merit

of Christ, and by his grace conferred upon us, so that by it we are and

can be denominated truly just and holy; still they deny that it enters

into justification in any way, either as a cause, or as a part, so that

justification may be said to be placed in it, and by and on account of

it man may be justified before God; since the righteousness of Christ alone

imputed to us is the foundation and meritorious cause, upon which our

absolutory sentence rests, so that for no other reason does God bestow

the pardon of sin and the right to life, than on account of the most perfect

righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and apprehended by faith. Whence

it is readily gathered that we have not here a mere dispute about words

as some falsely imagine but a controversy most real, and indeed of the

highest moment, as in it we treat of the principal foundation of our

salvation, which being overthrown or weakened, all our confidence and

consolation both in life and in death must necessarily perish.

This appears more clearly when we come to the thing itself, and the

controversy is not carried on coldly and unfeelingly in scholastic cloud

and dust as if from a distance, but

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in wrestling and agony, when the conscience is placed before God, and terrified by

a sense of sin, and of the divine justice it seeks a way to stand in the judgment and

to flee from the wrath to come. It is indeed easy in the shades of schools to prattle

much concerning the worth of inherent righteousness and of works to the

justification of men; but when we come into the sight of God, it is necessary to

leave such trifles, because there the matter is conducted seriously, and no

ludicrous disputes about words are indulged in. Hither our eyes must be

altogether raised up, if we wish to enquire profitably concerning true

righteousness, in what way we may answer the heavenly judge when he shall have

called us to account. Truly while among men the comparison holds good, each

one supposes he has what is of some worth and value. But when we rise to the

heavenly tribunal judge, not such as our intellect of their own accord imagine, but

as he is described to us in Scripture, namely, by whose brightness the stars are

darkened, at whose strength the mountains melt, by whose anger the earth is

shaken, whose justice not even the angels are equal to bear, who does not make

the guilty innocent, whose vengeance when once kindled penetrates even to the

lowest depths of hell; then in an instant the vain confidence of men perishes and

falls, and conscience is compelled, whatever it may have proudly boasted before

men concerning its own righteousness, to deprecate the judgment, and to confess

that it has nothing, upon which it can rely before God, crying out with David,

“Lord, if thou markest iniquity, who can stand?” And elsewhere, “Enter not into

judgment with thy servant, because no flesh will be justified in thy sight.”

There then is the true state of Controversy; when the mind is thoroughly

terrified with the consciousness of sin, and a sense of God’s wrath, what

is that thing on account of

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which he may be acquitted before God, and be reckoned a righteous person; what

is that righteousness, which he ought to oppose to the judgment of God that he be

not condemned according to the strict demand of the law, but may obtain

remission of sins, and a right to eternal life. Is it righteousness inhering in us and

inchoate holiness, or the righteousness and obedience of Christ alone imputed to

us? Our opponents hold the former, we the latter, which we are about to

demonstrate distinctly, 1. As to inherent righteousness. 2. As to imputed. Of the

latter we will treat in the next Question. Of the former we now speak.

That inherent righteousness cannot be the meritorious cause of our

justification, we prove. 1. Because no one is justified by an imperfect

righteousness; since the judgment of God is according to truth, and in

it there is no room for a gracious acceptation; nor can deception consist

with his law and justice. But inherent righteousness is not perfect, nor

actual nor habitual; not actual, because in many things we all offend,

James 3:2, and there is no one that sinneth not, 1 Kings 8:46, which

Bellarmine himself does not deny, lib. ii. de Justif., cap. 16; not

habitual, because the perfection and imperfection of an act depend upon

the perfection or imperfection of the habit; and our regeneration is

always imperfect; here, 1 Cor. 13:12, and Gal. 5:17. Not ought it to be

objected, either “that this absolute perfection was required under the

law, but is not under the gospel.” Because the relaxation made under the

gospel does not extend so far that an imperfect righteousness can be

accepted for a perfect; for God cannot be satisfied except by a perfect

righteousness; but in this that the vicarious and the alien righteousness

of a surety is admitted for our own. Or, “that righteousness is properly

said to be perfect, because it belongs to the works of God, which must

be perfect, because the work

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of the Rock is perfect,” Deut. 32:4. For the works which God does immediately by

himself, which are rightly called perfect absolutely, differ from mediate works,

which are performed by the intervention of creatures, such as the work of

regeneration, because God operating according to our capacity promotes and

perfects them little by little.

2. Because our justification takes place without works, therefore also

without inherent righteousness, which consists wholly in works, or in

habits from which works spring, the passages are obvious, for scarcely

anything has been oftener said, and more constantly asserted, nothing

certainly more fully argued: Rom. 3:20, “By the deeds of the law, there

shall no flesh be justified”, and 3:28, “We conclude, that a man is

justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” This the apostle

confirms in 4:6, and Gal. 2:16, and in many other places. Nor should it

be replied here, that all works are not absolutely excluded, but certain

ones only, to wit, ceremonial: or if moral are excluded, those only are

meant which precede faith and grace, and which are done by the strength

of free-will, not those which are done from faith and grace. Because since

the apostle absolutely and simply excludes all works without any exception,

it does not become as to limit, what he does not limit. And the thing itself

proves this; for he antithetically opposes faith to works in this matter,

whence it appears that all works entirely of whatsoever kind, and not some

particular ones, are excluded; otherwise he could not have simply opposed

one working and one believing, to do and to believe, but a certain kind

of working to other kinds.

This is demonstrated in particular, 1. as to ceremonial works. For that

law with its works is understood to be excluded by the apostle, by which

is the knowledge of sin, Rom. 3:20, and the whole world has become exposed

to

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condemnation, 3:19, concerning which it is said, “The man that doeth them shall

live in them,” Gal. 3:12, and from the curse of which Christ redeemed us, 3:13;

which must be understood of the whole law, and especially the moral, not the

ceremonial. 2. If the ceremonial law only would be excluded, not the moral, since

it is the less principal part of the law, justification would have to be ascribed,

rather than denied to the law, by reason of the moral law, which is much prior. 3.

This objection is rejected by many Romanists, Lombard, Thomas, Toletus,

Pererius, Justinian, Salmero, and others, as their commentaries clearly show.

Lombard on Rom. 3, “Without any works of the law, even the moral.” Thomas,

Lect. 4. on this passage, “Without the works of the law, not only ceremonial,

which do not bestow grace, but signify it, but also without the works of the moral

precepts according to this, Tit. 3:5, Not by works of righteousness which we have

done.” Augustine teaches expressly, lib. de Spiritu et Litera, cap. viii., that Paul

speaks of the whole law. Nor if the controversy between Paul and the

false-apostles arose from the use of circumcision and the observance of the

ceremonial law, which they urged as necessary to justification, does it follow that

the apostle speaks of it alone, when he excludes the works of the law from it.

Because he passes from a part to the whole, this hypothesis of the false-apostles

drawing with it a necessity of observing the whole law, as we see in Acts 15:5, and

Paul himself testifies, Gal. 5:3, when he says that he, who presses circumcision as

necessary, is a debtor to do the whole law, because the law demands not a partial,

but a perfect obedience in all. Whence because he saw that believers would thus

slide back to the Old Covenant, and depart from the New, he inveighs with so

much warmth against this error as most pestilential.

No better do others answer, that it treats of works of the moral law done

before faith and grace. 1. Because Paul excludes all works which are

opposed to faith; and yet all works without distinction are here opposed

to faith, as working and believing,

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Rom. 4:5. 2. There was no necessity to exclude the works of the unregenerate,

since it was acknowledged they were sins, as being done without faith, Rom. 14:23.

3. The examples of Abraham and David, adduced by Paul, Rom. 4, inasmuch as

they had been already converted and were believers, prove that works performed

even after faith are excluded; as the apostle speaking of himself now a believer, 1

Cor. 4:4, says, I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified. 4. All those

works are excluded, which could leave any reason for boasting to man, Rom. 3:27.

And yet such are works done by faith, which they hold to be meritorious. 5. The

works of believers are effects, which follow justification, not the causes which

precede it. 6. The design of the apostle in the Epistle to the Galatians was to

dispute against the false-apostles, who joined together in justification, faith and

works, the grace of Christ and their own merits. 7. If he had wished to exclude the

works of nature only, and not of grace; why does he so often and so carefully

oppose works to faith absolutely? Why does he never oppose the works of nature

to the works of grace, which would have greatly assisted in refuting the calumny

of his adversaries, by which they assailed his doctrine as if by excluding works

from justification he would open the door to sin, Rom. 6:1, “Shall we continue in

sin, that grace may abound?” And yet that inference would be founded upon no

foundation at all, if Paul had wished to exclude only works done before faith; for

who otherwise would gather that sin must not be indulged in after faith on this

account because works antecedent to faith do not justify in the least! Now both

kinds of works being excluded, it was easy to object this very thing, which the

Romanists of the present day object to us; to wit, that it is useless to do good

works, if there is no merit in works, nay, we should rather sin that grace may

abound. This objection of

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the profane the apostle did not refute by a distinction between antecedent and

subsequent, which assuredly he ought to have done according to the hypothesis of

our opponents; but by an explanation of sanctification, and its indissoluble

connection with justification.

Thirdly, because “our justification is free, by the grace of God, through

the redemption of Christ,” Rom. 3:24, where the grace of God cannot denote

the infused habit of love, as Bellarmine holds, but the favor and

benevolence of God, both because we are said to be justified by his grace,

that is, as the leading and meritorious cause is placed in the redemption

of Christ, the false is rejected by the particle freely, which excludes

all merit in us. 2. This grace is opposed to works and boasting, Rom. 11:6

and Eph. 2:9. 3. We cannot be justified by the redemption of Christ,

otherwise, than by the imputation of his righteousness, which is

incompatible with inherent righteousness, in the matter of justification;

for if we are justified in another, we cannot be justified in ourselves.

4. Pererius confesses that charin here denotes rather the gratuitous goodness and kindness of God towards men, which is elsewhere called

kindness and love toward men. Tit. 3:4. Nor if the benevolence of God works

in men good-pleasure, that is, the good which he wills for them, does it

follow that he gives inherent righteousness, that we may be justified by

it; because God does that good by distinct acts, the good indeed of imputed

righteousness by the act of justification, of inherent by the act of

sanctification, as he has made Christ into us both righteousness and

sanctification, 1 Cor. 1:30.

Fourthly, because justification consists according to Paul, Rom. 4:8, in

the remission of sins. Nor can it be done otherwise, since a sinner is

concerned. And yet he, whose sin is freely pardoned, cannot be justified

by inherent righteousness; nor

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is inherent righteousness remission of sins. Nor does he escape who says that it is

not indeed remission of sins, but still it is connected with it in justification.

Because it involves a contradiction that man is justified at the same time by

inherent righteousness and by remission of sins, as it is most absurd for one to be

justified in himself, and in another, by a personal and by another’s obedience.

Fifthly, if justification were by inherent righteousness, justification

will be of the law, not of the gospel, and the two covenants will be

confounded, which are nevertheless constantly opposed as diametrically

opposite to each other. Because legal justification takes place in no

other way than by inherent righteousness, whether actual or habitual;

while the gospel justification is to be sought not in us, but in another.

This the apostle clearly teaches, Phil. 3:9, when he wishes “to be found

in Christ,” to wit, in the judgment of God, “not having his own

righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith

of Christ;” that is, not an inherent righteousness, arising from an

observance of the law, and which is perfected by our actions, but the

righteousness of God and Christ, imputed to us and apprehended by faith.

Sixthly, because this derogates from the merit of Christ, and is an

argument for glorying and pride. For if Christ most fully suffice for our

justification, why are human merits sewed on? Is not injury thus done to

Christ, and material given to man for glorying in himself with God? Nor

is this absurdity removed by saying that all this righteousness depends

on Christ, who obtained that also for us, and gave to it the power of

meriting. Because besides the gratuitous assumption that Christ merited

for us the power of meriting, as will be seen in the proper place, whatever

good man receives from God by grace, according to their hypothesis, does

not exclude the concourse of free-will, by

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whose intervention man may have some material for glorying in himself while we

must glory in the Lord alone. The Pharisee is no less condemned although, giving

thanks to God, he professes that he has all that he has, from him, not from

himself, Luke 18.

Seventhly, because remission of sin requires the removal of guilt by the

payment of the ransom due. And yet inherent righteousness can neither

remove the offence to God, or the guilt springing from it, nor compensate

for the injury to the Divine majesty. For besides that it looks to the

future, that man may perform his duty, not to the past, that he may

compensate for the defect of duty by giving a satisfaction, it is

impossible by a quality of finite virtue, and worth for an offence of

infinite indignity to be blotted out and compensated for.

Eighthly, we cannot omit here the remarkable testimonies of two Cardinals,

who, overcome by the power of the truth, agree with us. The first is

Cardinal Contarenus, who in his tract de Justif., thus expresses himself.

“Since,” he says, “we reach a twofold righteousness by faith, a

righteousness inherent in us, and the love and grace by which we are made

partakers of the divine nature; and righteousness of Christ given and

imputed to us, since we are planted in Christ, and put on Christ; it remains

to inquire, on which of these we ought to rest, and to think ourselves

justified before God, that is, reckoned holy and righteous. I truly think

it to be said piously and religiously, that we ought to rest, I say rest

upon a stable thing, which can certainly sustain us, upon the

righteousness of Christ bestowed upon us, and not upon the holiness and

grace inherent in us. For this our righteousness is inchoate and imperfect,

which cannot keep us from offending in many things and from constantly

sinning. Therefore we cannot in the sight of God on account of this our

righteousness be esteemed righteous and good, as it becomes the sons of

God to be good and holy. But

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the righteousness of Christ given to us is a true and perfect righteousness, which

is altogether pleasing in the sight of God, in which there is nothing that offends

him, that does not in the highest degree please him. We must therefore rest upon

this alone, sure and stable, and on account of it alone we must believe that we are

justified before God, that is, considered righteous and called righteous.” From

him Bellarmine does not differ much, lib. v. de Justific., cap. 7, who after exerting

all his strength in a defence of human merit, pressed by the consciousness of the

truth, at length is brought to say, “that on account of the uncertainty of personal

righteousness, and the danger of vain glory, it is the safest to place our entire

confidence in the mercy and kindness of God alone,” etc. To this proposition

answers this clause of his will. “And I pray, him to admit me among his saints and

elect, not as an estimator of merit, but as a bestower of pardon.”

Christ by his obedience is rightly said to constitute us righteous, not

by inherent righteousness, but by imputed, as is taught in Rom. 4:6, and

gathered from the opposition of the antecedent condemnation, 5:19. For

they are not the less constituted righteous before God, who on account

of the obedience of Christ imputed to them are absolved from deserved

punishment, than they who on account of the disobedience of Adam are

constituted unrighteous, that is, are exposed to death and condemnation.

Nor if Adam constituted us unrighteous effectively by a propagation of

inherent depravity, on account of which we are also exposed to death in

the sight of God; does it follow equally that Christ constitutes us

righteous by a forensic justification at the bar of God by inherent

righteousness given to us by him. Because the design of the apostle, which

is alone to be regarded, does not have this direction, but he only wishes

to disclose the foundation of the connection between exposedness to death

and the right to life, from our union with, the first and

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second Adam, as to the thing, although the mode is different on account of the

difference in the subject. The abundance of grace and of righteousness, 5:17, does

not denote habitual grace, or inherent righteousness, but the abundance of divine

mercy, and the infinite treasury of righteousness, which believers obtain in the

obedience of the Mediator. And this gift is said to be greater than the sin of Adam,

because the grace of God giving us the righteousness of Christ, not only took away

the guilt of one transgression, but of all actual sins, as Aquinas well remarks on

this passage. Nor does it press us more that we are said to receive abundance of

grace, 5:17, because we receive it by the hand of faith, not that it becomes ours by

way of infusion, or of inhesion, but by way of imputation.

In 1 Cor. 6:11, justification is not set forth as a genus, embracing under

itself ablution and sanctification; but on the contrary ablution, which

is adumbrated in Baptism, as the more general word is set forth in the

first place, containing under it justification and sanctification, as two

species, as frequently both these benefits are wont to be described by

the one word, ablution, as much justification, Ps. 51:2, 1 John 1:7, as

sanctification, Heb. 9:14. What is added, however, concerning the name

of Christ, does not properly denote an invocation, which is made by it,

but the power and efficacy of it, so that to be justified in the name of

Christ, is nothing else than to be justified by and on account of Christ,

because there is no other name by which we can obtain salvation.

Paul does not say, Tit. 3:5–7, that we are justified by regeneration,

nay, since he ascribes justification to the grace of God, and takes it

away from works, he shows that he is unwilling to ascribe it to

righteousness inhering by regeneration, which is rather the fruit than

the cause of justification.

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But his intention is to point out how God will have us saved by two benefits which

he bestows upon us, regeneration, of which the Holy Spirit is the author in us,

and justification, which we obtain by Christ, by which we are made heirs of

eternal life; That denotes the way of salvation, this its cause.

The conformity to the image of Christ, to which we are predestinated, Rom.

8:29, means indeed that we are made partakers of inherent holiness and

righteousness like his; but it does not mean that we are justified by that

inherent righteousness, as he was; since both our preceding sin and the

imperfection of this righteousness in us, renders such a justification

impossible. For it cannot happen, that they, who are the children of wrath

by nature, and who are never without sin, can be justified in the same

manner, in which he was justified, who knew no sin, and in whose mouth

no guile was found.

Although Abel and Noah were righteous and did good works, still they were

not on that account justified by their own inherent righteousness and good

works. Nay, Paul, Heb. 11, testifies that they were righteous by the

righteousness of faith: Abel, indeed, while by faith he offered a more

excellent sacrifice by which he also obtained witness that he was

righteous, 11:4; Noah became heir of the righteousness which is faith,

11:7, which is no other than the righteousness which God imputes through

faith, Rom. 4:5, 6. Whence flowed the good works which they performed.

Since justification is described in the Scriptures by remission of sins

and the imputation of righteousness, it cannot be called a motion from

sin to righteousness, such as occurs in illumination and calefaction. And

this is the prōton pseudos of our opponents, who convert a forensic and judicial action, which takes place before God, into a physical or moral

action, which takes place in us.

When believers seek of God to be justified according to their

righteousness, Ps. 7:8, and 17:1, and 18:20, we must not

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understand it of a personal righteousness, which they elsewhere confess they are

destitute of, Ps. 130:3, and 143:2, but of a righteousness of the cause, which they

maintained and on account of which they suffered persecution from the wicked;

or if personal righteousness is understood by it, it is not a universal and absolute,

which is found in no mortal but particular as to certain acts, in which they can

conduct themselves well by the grace of God, such as was the action of Phinehas,

which was imputed to him for righteousness, and comparative, not relatively to

God, but to the wicked who undeservedly slandered them.

The proportion of man to the highest good is either from the prescription

of the law, Do this and live, or from the assistance of grace. In the former

sense man in innocence would have had a proportion to the highest good.

But by sin that way having been shut up, another was to be sought in Christ,

who by fulfilling the law for us, acquired for us a right to the highest

good or eternal life. When therefore life is said to be given to the pious

and righteous, the quality or disposition of the subject is denoted, which

ought to profess life, not, however, the cause of such a good; that is,

how happy they ought to be, not why and on account of what.

Although in those, to whom the satisfaction of Christ is imputed, the habit

of righteousness is also infused, which advances little by little from

small beginnings to perfection, which we reach only in the other life;

and by this habit we begin to be righteous morally and inherently; still

we cannot be called righteous relative to the divine judgment. For so far

only are we constituted righteous in the divine court, as we can remove

the accusation, with which we are charged, of sin past as well as present.

Now such an inchoate habit of righteousness cannot remove such an

accusation, whether by making it false, because it is evident that we

always have sinned and so are guilty, or by expunging it through a

suffering of the punishment due, because it cannot have the relation of a

satisfaction for sins committed, by which their guilt may be taken away, for it

tends to this, that we may not sin hereafter, but it cannot make us not to have

sinned, and so we do not need another’s righteousness imputed to us for our

justification.

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3.

The True Foundation

Is the righteousness and obedience of Christ, imputed to us, the meritorious

cause and foundation of our justification with God? We affirm against the

Romanists and Socinians.

The false and pretended impelling and meritorious cause of our justification,

which is placed by the Romanists in inherent righteousness, having been rejected,

the true and genuine cause must now be exhibited from the Scriptures, to wit, the

righteousness and obedience of Christ imputed to us by God. That the truth and

mode of this may be the more clearly seen, and more strongly retained against the

cavils of our opponents, the following things must be premised.

Firstly, we suppose that justification is a forensic act of God, as has

already been proved, not as a creditor and a private person, but as a ruler

and judge giving sentence concerning us at his bar. 2. That it is the act

not of a subordinate judge, who is bound to the formula of the law, but

of a supreme magistrate and prince, to whom alone belongs in virtue of

his autocratic right the showing of

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favor to the guilty, and the relaxation of the rigour of established laws. 3. That

God does not here sit on the throne of Justice, that he may act according to the

strict justice of the law, but on the throne of grace, that he may act according to

the gospel forbearance. 4. That he so acts from mercy as not to do injury to his

justice, which, since it cannot suffer his laws to be violated with impunity, and sin

to go unpunished, requires necessarily some satisfaction to be made to it.

Whence it follows, 5. That God cannot show favor to, nor justify any one

without a perfect righteousness. For since the judgment of God is

according to truth, he cannot pronounce any one just, who is not really

such. Since, however, no mortal after sin has such a righteousness in

himself, nay, by sin he has been made a child of wrath and become exposed

to death, it must be sought out of us in another, by the intervention of

which man, sinful and wicked, may be justified without personal

righteousness. Human courts, indeed, often justify the guilty, either

through ignorance, when the wickedness is not known and lies concealed,

or by injury, when it is not attended to, or by iniquity, when it is

approved. But in the divine court, in which we have to deal with the most

just judge, who neither holds the guilty as innocent, nor the innocent

as guilty, this cannot occur. So that he who is destitute of personal

righteousness, ought to have another’s by which to be justified. For

although God, as the supreme Arbiter of affairs, and the sovereign Lord

of all, has the power to remit the punishment of sinners; still he cannot,

because he is most just, thus favor the sinner, unless a satisfaction is

first made, by which both his justice may be satisfied and punishment taken

of sin: and since this could not come from us who are guilty, it was to

be sought in another, who constituted a surety in our place, by receiving

upon himself the punishment

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due to us, might bestow the righteousness of which we were destituted.

The gospel teaches that what could not be found in us, and was to be sought

in another, could be found nowhere else than in Christ the God-man, who,

taking upon himself the office of surety, most fully satisfied the Justice

of God by his perfect obedience, and thus brought to us an everlasting

righteousness, by which alone we can be justified with God, in order that

covered and clothed with that garment, as it were, of our first born, like

Jacob, we may obtain under it the eternal blessing of our heavenly Father.

Further, because as long as Christ is without us, and we are without Christ,

we can receive no fruit from another’s righteousness: God willed to unite

us to Christ by a twofold bond, one natural, the other mystical, in virtue

of which both our evils might be transferred to Christ, and the blessings

of Christ pass over to us, and become ours. The former is the communion

of nature by the Incarnation, by which Christ, having assumed our flesh,

became our Brother and a true Goel, and could receive our sins upon himself

and have the right to redeem us. The latter is the communion of grace,

by Mediation, by which having been made by God a surety for us, and given

to us for a head, he can communicate to us his righteousness, and all his

benefits. Hence it happens that as he was made of God sin for us by the

imputation of our sins, so in turn we are made the righteousness of God

in him by the imputation of his obedience, 2 Cor. 5:21.

Just as Christ sustains a twofold relation to us, of surety and head, of

surety, to take away the guilt of sin by a payment made for it, of head,

to take away its power and corruption by the efficacy of the Spirit, so

in a two-fold way Christ imparts his blessings to us by a forensic

imputation, and a moral and internal infusion. The former flows from

Christ as surety, and is the foundation of our justification.

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The latter depends upon him as head, and is the principle of sanctification. For on

this account God justifies us, because the righteousness of our surety, Christ, is

imputed to us. And on this account we are renewed, because we derive the spirit

from our head, Christ, who renews us after the image of Christ, and bestows upon

us inherent righteousness.

Because, however, we treat here of the imputed righteousness of Christ,

we must remark further, that the word impute, which is in Hebrew chshbh, in Greek logizesthai or ellogein, can be taken in two ways, either properly or improperly. That is said to be imputed to any one improperly, which

he himself has done, or has, when on that account a reward or punishment

is decreed to him. As sin is said to be imputed to the wicked, 2 Sam. 19:19,

when the reward of iniquity is imputed to them, and the judgment exercised

by Phinehas was counted unto him for righteousness, Ps. 106:31, that is,

it was pleasing to God, and gained for him the praise of holy zeal, and

the covenant of a perpetual priesthood. Properly is to hold him, who has

not done a thing, as if he had done it; and in turn not to impute, is to

hold him who has done a thing as if he had not done it; as Paul desires

the fault of Onesimus to be imputed to him, which he himself had not

committed, Phm. 18, and asks that the fault should not be laid to the charge

of those who forsook him, which they had committed, 2 Tim. 4:16. From this

two fold acceptation of the word, a twofold imputation arises, concerning

which Paul speaks, of grace and of debt, Rom. 4:4, 5, “Now to him that

worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that

worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith

is counted for righteousness,” viz., of grace; for the foundation of imputation, is either in the merit and dignity of the person, to whom a

thing is imputed, or it is out of it in the grace and mercy alone of the

one imputing: The first is the legal mode, the other is the evangelical.

Whence we

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gather that this word is forensic, which is not to be understood physically of an

infusion of righteousness, but judicially and relatively, of gratuitous acceptance in

the judgment of God, which also appears from the force of the word logizesthai,

and ellogein, which is drawn from accountants.

But here we must accurately distinguish between imputed and putative or

fictitious, in order to meet the calumny of our opponents, who traduce

this imputation, as a mere fiction. Since it is a thing no less real in

its own order, to wit, judicial and forensic, than infusion in a moral

or physical order, as the imputation of a payment made by a surety, to

the Debtor, is in the highest degree real, to wit, by which he is freed

from the debt, and delivered from the right which the Creator had over

him. Whence it is evident that this Judicial act of God does not want truth,

because he does not pronounce us righteous in ourselves, which would be

false, but in Christ, which is perfectly true; nor justice, because there

is granted a communion between us and Christ, which is the solid foundation

of this imputation.

When, therefore, we say that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to

us for justification, and that we are just before God through that imputed

righteousness, and not through any righteousness inherent in us, we mean

nothing else than that the obedience of Christ rendered in our name to

God, the Father, is so given to us by God, that it is reckoned to be truly

ours, and that it is the sole and only righteousness on account of, and

by the merit of which, we are absolved from the guilt of our sins, and

obtain a right to life, and that there is in us no righteousness nor good

works, by which we can deserve such great benefits, which can bear the

severe examination of the divine court, if God willed to deal with us

according to the rigour of his law; that we can oppose nothing to it except

the merit and satisfaction of Christ, in which alone,

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terrified by the consciousness of sin, we can find a safe refuge against the divine

wrath, and peace to our souls.

Now although we hold that there is nothing in us which can be opposed at

the bar of God for justification, still one would improperly conclude from

this, what our opponents falsely and slanderously charge upon us, that

we recognize no inherent righteousness, in believers, and by reason of

which they are truly reckoned righteous and holy with God; and thus to

teach that believers always remain wicked and unjust in themselves, and

that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us solely to cover our sins

and not to take them away. Whence they take occasion to traduce our

doctrine concerning the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as impious

and execrable. Because, as we just now said, we hold these two benefits

to be inseparable; and that no one is justified by Christ, who is not also

sanctified, and gifted with inherent righteousness, from which believers

can truly be denominated holy and righteous, although not perfectly in

this life.

From these principles the state of the Question can be readily gathered.

Firstly, against the Socinians it is inquired: Are the righteousness,

obedience and satisfaction of Christ imputed to us for righteousness? For

as they deny that the obedience and satisfaction of Christ were rendered

for us; so they reject the imputation and application of that obedience

and satisfaction and explode it as a human invention, Socinus, tract. de

Justifi., Ostoradorus, Instit. cap. 36, 37, Smalcius, Disp. de

Justificatione. The orthodox, however, think the obedience and

satisfaction of Christ are imputed to us for righteousness, inasmuch as

it is reckoned ours by the gratuitous mercy of God, and on account of it

we are absolved from sin in God’s court and pronounced just.

But against the Romanists the question is not, 1. Is the righteousness

of Christ the formal cause of our justification, that is, Is it the form,

by which man is constituted just inherently, as the Romanists understand

it, describing justification

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by the infusion of righteousness? For since we have already proved that it is a

forensic, not a physical act, fruitless is the question concerning the internal

formal cause, which pertains to the blessing of sanctification. But the question is

concerning the meritorious and impulsive cause of the divine judgment of our

absolving sentence; not, Is the righteousness of Christ our formal and inherent

righteousness, subjectively, but Is our righteousness real and sufficient

imputatively, by which, if we are not formally righteous by inherent righteousness,

still we are formally justified by the imputation of it, so that except it there is no

other material of our righteousness before God?

2. The question is not: Is the righteousness and merit of Christ imputed

to us? For this the Romanists do not dare to deny. The Council of Trent,

Sess. 6, cap. 8, says, “Christ by his most holy suffering on the cross

merited justification for us, and satisfied God, the Father, for us, and

no one can be just, unless he to whom the merits of the suffering of our

Lord Jesus Christ are communicated.” Hence Vasquez, in i. 2. q. 114, disp.

222. cap. 1, “We grant,” says he, “there are imputed to us for a certain

effect, not only those things that are in us, as sin, faith, and

righteousness, but also some things that are without us, as the merit and

obedience of Christ, because not only the things that are in us but also

those without, in view of which something is given to us, are said to be

reckoned among our things for some effect as if they were truly ours.”

This Bellarmine also acknowledges, lib. ii. de Justif. cap. 7, “If the

Protestants mean only this”, says he, “that the merits of Christ are

imputed to us, because they are given to us of God, and we can offer them

to the Father for our sins, since Christ undertook the burden of satisfying

for us, and reconciling us to God, the Father, their opinion is correct.”

And yet we mean nothing less: for what he adds, “that we wish the

righteousness of Christ to be so imputed to us that by it we are called,

and are formally righteous,” this he supposes falsely and

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gratuitously, from his perverse and preposterous hypothesis concerning moral

justification. But the question is, To what is that Imputation made? To

justification and life? as we maintain, or only to the infusion of internal grace and

inherent righteousness? as they hold. That is, are the merits of Christ so imputed

and communicated to us as to be the sole meritorious cause of our justification,

and that there is no other righteousness on account of which we are acquitted in

the sight of God? which we contend for; or, Are they so imputed as to be the

conditions of a formal cause, that is of inherent righteousness, so that man can be

gifted with it, or of an extrinsic cause, which deserves the infusion of

righteousness, by which man is justified; so that not the merit of Christ properly,

but inherent righteousness acquired by the merit of Christ, is the proper and true

cause on account of which man is justified; which they maintain so limiting the

benefit of the imputation of Christ’s merits to obtaining the effect of infused grace,

that this imputation is made for no other end, than to merit for us infused grace,

in virtue of which we obey the law, and being righteous in ourselves are justified;

as Vasquez in the passage cited, c. iii. observes. Whence Bonaventure, in 3. Sent.

Dist. 19. q. 1., “denies not the causality of justification, or of the remission of sins,

properly belongs to the death or resurrection of Christ, but only by way of

intervening merit, which is reduced to the material cause, while he determines

the formal cause to be infused love. From these it is evident that the question here

is, Are the righteousness and satisfaction of Christ so imputed to us by God, as to

be the only foundation and meritorious cause, in view of which alone we are

acquitted before God of our sins and obtain a right to life? Our opponents deny,

we affirm.

There is, however, no need to remark that by the righteousness of Christ

we do not understand here the essential righteousness of God dwelling in

us, as Osiander with

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Swenkfeld dreamed, opposing himself to Stancar his colleague, who

acknowledged Christ as Mediator only according to his human nature; which

error was exploded and perished with its author. Because that righteousness

could not be communicated to us subjectively and formally, which is an essential

attribute of God, without our becoming Gods also. And the Scripture everywhere

refers the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to us, to the obedience of his

life and the suffering of his death, by which he answered the demands of the law

and perfectly fulfilled it. Nor if we had the need of an infinite righteousness,

should it be such in essence, but only in value and merit. If Christ is Jehovah, our

righteousness, and if he is made to us righteousness by the Father, this is not said

with respect to essential righteousness, but to the obedience, which is imputed to

us for righteousness; this is called the righteousness of God, because it belongs to

a divine Person, and so is of infinite value, and is highly pleasing and acceptable

to God. By this righteousness, then, we understand the entire obedience of Christ,

of his life as well as of his death, active as well as passive, as we have already

proved, Topic 14. Quest. 13.

Now that this righteousness of Christ is the foundation and meritorious

cause of our justification, we prove 1. Because by the righteousness and

obedience of one, Christ, we are constituted righteous: “As by the

offense of one,” says Paul, Rom. 5:18, 19, “guilt came upon all men to

condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one supply”, the blessing

redounded “upon all men into justification of life. For as by one man’s

disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many

be made righteous.” Where it is clear that the one transgression is

opposed to the one righteousness, and the disobedience of one man, by which

men are constituted sinners and guilty before God by the imputation of

that sin, to the obedience of one,

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Christ, by which the elect are justified before God, not assuredly by inhesion, but

by imputation. 1. Because the act of one cannot be made the act of many, except

by imputation. 2. Because the righteousness, upon which justification of life rests,

demands a perfect and absolute righteousness, which cannot be said of inherent

righteousness. 3. Because the condemnation, to which the justification of life is

opposed, is not a physical, but a forensic and judicial act. In vain does Bellarmine

maintain that the obedience of Christ is indeed the efficient cause of justification,

but not the formal, as the disobedience of Adam constituted us sinners, not

formally but efficiently. Because we are not treating of an infusion of

righteousness, nor of renovation, as we have just said; but of a juridical

constitution, which cannot take place except by imputation, since it is of another’s,

not of a personal righteousness. Again, Bellarmine himself testifies the contrary,

lib. iv. de Amiss. Gra., cap. 10., when he says, “The sin of Adam is so imputed to

his posterity, as if we had all committed the same sin.” And, lib. v. cap. 17, “The

sin of Adam is communicated to us in the manner in which what passes over can

be communicated, to wit, by imputation; for it is imputed to all who are born of

Adam.” Nor if we are constituted unrighteous and guilty by sin propagated from

Adam, ought we at once to be justified by inherent righteousness communicated

to us through regeneration by Christ, because there is a very different reason for

each. And Paul here institutes the comparison between the first and second Adam

in the thing, and not as to the manner of the thing.

Secondly, because faith is said to be imputed to us for righteousness.

“Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness”,

Rom. 4:3; not the act of faith itself or the act of believing formally,

as if it was righteousness with God, as the Remonstrants hold, against

whom we will hereafter dispute,

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because thus justification would not be without works, since faith itself is a work;

but objectively and relative to the righteousness of Christ, which faith apprehends,

and applies to itself, which the apostle calls the righteousness of faith, which is

through the faith of Christ, Phil. 3:9, in which alone he wishes to be found, viz., at

the bar of God, because it is to be sought no where else than in Christ, who is

Jehovah, our righteousness, and who is made unto us of God righteousness. It is

confirmed by this that Paul in the same place explains the imputation of faith for

righteousness by the imputation of righteousness without works, Rom. 4:6.

Hence it is surely evident, 1. That justification consists in the imputation of

righteousness, that no one may suppose this phrase was invented by us. 2. That

this righteousness cannot be inherent; given to us by infusion, both because it is

said to be without works, and because what is inherent is opposed to what is

imputed. On that account it is opposed by Paul in the passage cited, Phil. 3:9, to

his own righteousness which is of the law, and is elsewhere called the

righteousness of God, which is manifested without the law, Rom. 3:21, 22, both

because it is subjectively in a divine person, and so of infinite value, and originally

because it is from God, since it is given to us freely by God, and terminatively,

because it leads to God, and is approved by him, and can alone sustain the

examination of his judgment. Therefore whoever by faith applies that

righteousness to himself, is said not to come into judgment, but to have already

passed from death to life, John 5:24, that is, to be justified.

Thirdly, because Christ is the righteousness by which we are justified.

For on this account he is said to be made of God unto us righteousness,

1 Cor. 1:30; and 2 Cor. 5:21, we are said to be made the righteousness

of God in him: “God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that

we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” From this it is

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evident, 1. That Christ is our righteousness before God, not surely inherently,

because the righteousness of one cannot pass over into another, but imputatively.

2. We are made the righteousness of God in him just as he is made sin for us. Now

Christ was made sin for us, not inherently or subjectively, because he knew no sin,

but imputatively, because God imputed to him our sins, and made the iniquities

of us all to meet on him, Isa. 53:6; therefore we also are made righteousness, not

by infusion, but by imputation, which Augustine, Enchir. c. xli., finely expresses,

“He therefore was sin, that we might be righteousness, nor ours, but God’s, nor in

us, but in him, as he demonstrated sin, not his own, but ours, nor in himself, but

in us constituted in the likeness of sinful flesh, in which he was crucified.”

Fruitless is the objection, that “Christ is said to have been made wisdom, and

sanctification, not surely imputatively, but effectively.” For even if he was equally

made to us of God all these as to merit, because he acquired all these blessings for

us; still he was not made in the same manner as to bestowal, but diversely

according to the diversity of the gifts, and the nature of the thing demands this.

For if he was made righteousness in no other way than sanctification, that is,

effectively, Paul would be guilty of tautology, since in this way justification and

sanctification would not differ. Therefore he is made wisdom and sanctification to

us effectively, by illuminating and regenerating us; but righteousness

imputatively, by imputing to us his righteousness. Bellarmine cannot deny this,

when he says that Christ can rightly be said to be made righteousness

meritoriously, “because he satisfied the Father for us, and gives and

communicates that satisfaction to us, when he justifies us, so that he can be called

our satisfaction and righteousness; as if we ourselves had satisfied God”, this he

confirms, on the passage 2 Cor. 5:21, “The righteousness of Christ,” says he, “is

imputed to us as to the satisfaction,

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which he made for us.” Nor can that, which our opponent adds in the same place,

help his cause, when he says, “But not on this account can we be reckoned

righteous, if the stains and corruption of sins truly inhere in us.” For if the

righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, as he had already confessed, then

certainly we are considered righteous in him; for on one imputes righteousness to

him, whom he does not count righteous. And if the satisfaction of Christ is

imputed to us, then our debts for which he satisfied, are not imputed, but are

remitted. Falsely also he holds “that the righteousness inhering in us is here

called the righteousness of God, because it is given to us of God, or also, because

it is the image and effect of the righteousness of God.” For the little clause, in him,

stands in the way; for how could it be said to be in Christ, if it was in us? This

Contarenus acknowledges, “The righteousness of God in him,” says he, “since his

righteousness is made ours, is given and imputed to us.”

Fourthly, because justification takes place on account of the suretyship

of Christ, and the payment made for us by him, which cannot be done without

imputation. For as a payment made by a surety for a debtor cannot help

him except by imputation, inasmuch as the payment made by a surety is

applied to him as if it had been made by himself; whence follows the

cancelling of the debt, and the deliverance of the debtor, so since Christ

undertook to be our surety, and paid in our place, who does not see that

the payment made by him, and the ransom given, is imputed to us for full

absolution, that is, is considered by God as if it had been given by us?

In this sense we are said to be justified by the death and blood of Christ,

Rom. 5:9, because the merit of his obedience and death was that in view

of which God was reconciled and gave to us the pardon of sin. In the same

sense he is said, “to have been made a curse and sin for us, that we might

be made a blessing and righteousness in him,” Gal. 3:13, 2 Cor. 5:21,

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because the curse and punishment of sin which he received upon himself in our

stead secures to us blessing and righteousness with God, in virtue of that most

strict union between us and him, by which, as our sins are imputed to him, so in

turn his obedience and righteousness are imputed to us. Just as under the law,

the punishment which the victims suffered in place of sinners, was imputed to

them for the expiation of sin and their liberation.

Fifthly, because Christ justifies us by that, by which he frees us from

the condemnation of the law, and fulfills in us its right to life. “For

what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God

sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned

sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled

in us,” etc., namely, our justification by the law having become

impossible through sin, God restored this benefit to us in Christ, while

being made like to sinful flesh, yet without sin, he offered himself for

us as a victim for sin, and having made a most full satisfaction condemned

sin, that is, perfectly expiated it, in the flesh, for this end, that the

condemnation of sin might give place to our justification, and the

righteousness of the law, that is, the right which it has, whether as to

obedience or as to punishment, is fulfilled in us, not inherently, but

imputatively, while what Christ did and suffered in our place, is ascribed

to us, as if we had done that very thing; thus we are considered in Christ

to have fulfilled the whole righteousness of the law, because in our name

he most perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of the law, as to obedience

as well as to punishment.

Sixthly, because our justification is a justification of the ungodly, Rom.

4:5, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth

the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” A justification

of the ungodly cannot be made by infusion, but by imputation. For although

he that is justified

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does not remain wicked, but is renewed by the grace of Christ, he cannot be said

to be justified by that renovation, which is the effect, following justification, not

the cause which precedes it. And faith, by which man is justified, and is made

righteous in Christ, does not prevent him from being, and being called wicked in

himself, inasmuch as he is opposed to the one working, as he who has nothing

upon which he can rely before the divine tribunal for his justification, and so is

ungodly, partly antecedently, partly with respect to justification; not however

concomitantly, still less consequently.

Various testimonies of the Fathers could be gathered together here, who

approve our opinion by their vote, which we omit from a desire to be brief.

It will be sufficient to quote the words of Bernard, because he often

asserted this saving doctrine with exceeding skill: Epist. 19, ad

Innocent., “Another’s righteousness is assigned to him who wanted a

personal.” And a little after, “If one died for all, therefore all are

dead; that the satisfaction of one might be imputed to all, as that one

bore the sins of all.” And Serm. 61, in Cantic., “My merit then is the

compassion of the Lord; I am not wholly destitute of merit, as long as

he is not wanting in mercy.” And a little after, “Shall I sing of my

righteousness? O Lord, I will make mention of thy righteousness alone,

which is also mine. Shall I fear that the righteousness is not enough for

both? It is not a short garment, which according to the prophet cannot

cover two.” And Serm. 27, “Not to sin is the righteousness of God; the

righteousness of man is the indulgence of God.”

Christ ought not only to restore the goods lost in Adam, but also to remove

the evils contracted through Adam. Now there were two, guilt and

corruption of nature, to which two goods should be opposed: the imputation

of righteousness to take away guilt before God, and a renovation of nature,

to heal inherent corruption. Again, Christ did not

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restore only the lost goods, but a far more excellent: we lost mutable

righteousness, but an immutable is restored to us; we lost only an inherent, and

there is given us an imputed with an inherent, without which we could not be

made partakers of the inherent: otherwise, if nothing was restored in Christ than

what had been lost in Adam, pardon of sin would not be given to us in Christ,

because it was not lost in Adam.

What is imputed to any one by a mere gracious acceptation, that is not

really paid, but is considered as paid; but what is imputed on account

of a true payment made by another, supposes the thing to be paid. Now the

imputation of the righteousness of Christ, of which we speak, is not to

be understood in the first sense, which is the improper, for an imputation

which takes place without any payment at all, whether of the debtor or

of the surety; but in the latter, inasmuch as it is founded in another’s

payment, that of Christ the surety.

Although we are justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ, it does

not follow that we are not less righteous than Christ, and are thus

considered like Christ, Saviours and Redeemers of the world; and that

Christ on account of our unrighteousness imputed to him can be called a

sinner. Because the dignity of the head ought always to remain his own,

that the members may be conformed to the head, but in their order, and

not that they should become the head. Thus although as to imputation we

are truly righteous in the sight of God, still Christ is righteous in a

far more perfect manner; for we are such relatively in him, and indeed

precariously, and dependently; Christ, however, infinitely, originally,

inherently, and subjectively. 2. We can, indeed, on account of Christ’s

righteousness imputed to us be said to be redeemed and saved passively,

but not to be redeemers actively, because he only can be a redeemer, whose

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righteousness is imputed to another, not he who needs the imputation of another.

3. Christ cannot, on account of our sin having been imputed to him, be called a

sinner, which implies inherent corruption, but only a victim for sin, who received

on himself the punishment due to sin, and so guilt was to be taken away, not its

pollution.

Where two contrary physical forms and qualities exist under the same genus,

there it is certain that the denomination should be made from the intrinsic,

which affect the subject more, than from the extrinsic. Now inherent

righteousness, and imputed righteousness are not under the same genus;

the former indeed is in the class of relation; but the latter under the

class of quality; so that nothing is to hinder the subject from being

denominated from both under a different respect. For when the inherent

quality is regarded, he is said to be a sinner and wicked, but when the

external and forensic relation is considered, he is said to be righteous

in Christ. It is indeed true that no one can be called righteous inherently

by another’s righteousness, because if it is inherent, it is no longer

another’s. But still he can be said to be justified imputatively, since

every day among men a debtor on account of the payment made by a surety

is said to be free and discharged. This Augustine beautifully explains,

lib. xxiii., de Trinit. cap. 14: “It is surely just, that they whom the

devil held as debtors, should be discharged believing in him whom he killed

without any debt.” Whence it is evident that the example of the Ethiopian

adduced by Bellarmine, who is to be denominated rather from the blackness

of his body than from the whiteness of his garments, is improper; since

we are not speaking here of an inherent quality, or of an adhering garment,

but of a juridical relation given to him by the judge. Besides the

Ethiopian always remains an Ethiopian in the same manner; but the believer

does not remain wicked, but is converted.

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Although God justifies us on account of the imputed righteousness of

Christ, his judgment does not cease to be according to truth, because he

does not pronounce us righteous in ourselves subjectively, which would

be false, but in another, imputatively and relatively, which is perfectly

true. Thus God truly estimates the thing, and judges it as it is, not in

itself and in its own nature, but in Christ.

The spouse, in Song 4:7, is said to be all fair in two ways. 1. In her

head and husband imputatively, when all her pollutions are so covered by

his righteousness that there is no more condemnation in her, nor does God

see in her anything as to practical and penal knowledge, which he can

reprehend. 2. In herself inherently, because she has been perfectly

renewed by the Spirit, if not with a perfection of degrees, still with

a perfection of parts and of grace, which will at length be crowned by

a perfection of glory.

Although the imputed righteousness of Christ is maintained by us to be

the foundation of our justification with God, it does not on that account

cease to be purely gratuitous on the part of us; because it is a mere gift

of God’s mercy, because the Sponsor is given to us of God, and was

substituted in our place, and because his obedience and righteousness,

which we ourselves ought to have rendered from the rigor of the law, is

reckoned ours and imputed to us by God; and what is more, the righteousness

of the law is fulfilled in us, Rom. 8:4, and justification thus ceases

to be of the works of the law performed by us, that still it is not made

against it, but in accordance with it, and the law is not only not made

void but is rather established by faith, Rom. 3:31.

Although justification can be called extrinsic objectively, inasmuch as

it is the imputation of righteousness, which is formally without us, still

it is ours terminatively; nor is it more absurd for the righteousness of

Christ to be extrinsic to us, and yet to be imputed to us, than it is absurd

for our

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sins to be extrinsic to Christ, and yet to be imputed to Christ for punishment, or

(argumentum ad hominem) than it is absurd for the satisfactions of saints to be

imputed to others, as the Romanists maintain.

As the disobedience of Adam truly constituted us sinners by imputation,

so also the righteousness of Christ truly justifies us by imputation. Thus

imputed is properly opposed to inherent, but not to true, because we do

not invent an imputation, consisting in a mere opinion and fiction of law,

but which is in the highest sense real and true, but this truth belongs

to imputation, not to infusion, is juridical, not moral.

The righteousness of Christ is rightly said to be imputed to us for

righteousness, not that it may be reckoned righteousness, which was

already so before, but that what was before another’s may be made ours,

and that on account of it we may be pronounced righteous and received to

eternal life.

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4.

Remission and Adoption

Does justification consist only in the remission of sins, or does it embrace also

adoption and the right to life? The former we deny, and affirm the latter.

We have discussed the meritorious cause, or the foundation of justification; we

must now treat of its form or parts, concerning which the opinions of theologians

vary.

Some contend that the whole of justification is comprehended in the

remission of sin alone, so that God is to be considered as justifying us

then, when he pardons our sins and absolves us from all punishment. And

they hold this opinion, who maintain that Christ’s passive righteousness

alone is imputed to us. Others however make justification to consist of

two parts, remission of sin and imputation of righteousness; the former

removing punishment from the sinner, the latter rendering him worthy of

the reward, or of life.

But neither opinion seems to us to explain this subject with sufficient

accuracy. Not the first, because, as we shall afterwards see, absolution

from punishment is not sufficient for a

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full justification, but the communication of a right to life is also required. Nor if

the orthodox sometimes assert that justification is contained in the remission of

sins alone, does it follow that they do not also acknowledge the right to life under

it; because they speak thus against the Romanists, who hold that to justification

pertains not only the remission of sins, but also an internal renovation of the soul

and an infusion of righteousness; against whom they well maintain that the whole

of justification consists in the remission of sins under which they embrace also

the right to life, exclusive of the renovation of man, or the infusion of

righteousness.

But neither can the second opinion be received simply, because in it are

falsely joined the remission of sins and the imputation of righteousness,

as if they were parts answering to each other; remission indeed the first,

imputation of righteousness another; since however they do not in turn

correspond with each other as a part to a part, but as a cause to an effect,

and a foundation to that which rests upon it. For if we wish to philosophize

rightly, God does not remit our sins and afterwards impute righteousness,

but he first imputes righteousness, and afterwards on account of that

imputed righteousness, remits our sins. For a satisfaction and a ransom

must necessarily intervene, in order that remission may be granted by God

without detriment to his justice, and that it may be the foundation of

the absolving sentence, which is made in favor of the elect. Because if

by the imputation of righteousness theologians mean nothing else than the

bestowal of a right to life, as it is certain many do, they hold that indeed

truly, but do not express themselves with sufficient accuracy.

Thus then we believe the thing can be more readily and clearly conceived:

Christ having been destined and given of God to us as a surety and head,

in virtue of this union it happens that whatever was done by him, or endured,

for the

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perfect fulfillment of the law, as well as to its precepts as to its penal sanction, is

reckoned ours, as done in our place, and is imputed to us by God, as if it had been

performed by ourselves. From this imputation of his most perfect righteousness

flow two benefits, both remission of sins and the bestowment of a right to life, or

adoption, in which two the whole of justification is contained. So that the

imputation of righteousness is the foundation and the meritorious cause of

justification, while adoption and absolution are two parts of justification and

effects of the imputation of righteousness, which are inseparable from each other.

For as pardon of sin cannot be granted nor a right to life be conferred, unless on

the supposition of the imputation of righteousness, by the intervention of which

God can without prejudice to his justice free from punishment and bestow life; so,

such imputation being posited, both these benefits flow necessarily from the

double property of this righteousness, inasmuch as it has a satisfactory and

meritorious power at the same time; by reason of the former imputed

righteousness is the foundation of the remission of sins, by reason of the latter it

is the cause of the right to life.

Now many reasons prove that these two benefits must be joined together

here, whether we attend to the law, which was to be fulfilled, or regard

our necessity, or the nature of things, or the voice of Scripture. For

as the law contains a sanction of two parts, on the one side the punishment

of death to transgressors, on the other the reward of life to the obedient:

so the righteousness of the law which by the justification of Christ is

fulfilled in us, cannot be obtained except with the remission of sins,

which involves a liberation from punishment; we have a right to life, which

Christ acquired for us most perfectly by his obedience.

Secondly, the necessity of salvation demanded this very thing. For as two

evils were derived into us by sin, 1. That we were

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made guilty before God. 2. That we were made enemies and aliens from God, the

fountain of life; the guilt of death into which we enter, and the privation of life

which we lost; so we could not be restored to integrity, except the guilt of death be

taken away by the remission of sins, and a right to life be given by adoption. And

as happiness is placed not only in a privation of evil, but most especially in the

possession of good, it was not enough to be delivered from evil or death, unless

the right to good or life had been conferred.

The nature of the thing proves it. Because it is one thing to redeem from

punishment, another, to assign a reward also; one thing to deliver from

death, another, to bestow life and happiness; to bring out of prison, and

to seat upon a throne. The former takes away evil, but the latter superadds

also good; as if a fugitive slave should not only be acquitted of the

punishment due, but also raised to the dignity and right of a son. For

although these two things are connected together indissolubly from the

covenant of grace, still from the nature of the thing they could be

separated; as Adam although innocent from the beginning of his creation,

and worthy of a reward, until he had perfected the round of obedience:

so it was not absolutely necessary that he whose sins have been remitted,

and who is delivered from the guilt of death, should straightway be gifted

with a crown of immortality, since, if it pleased God, he might have

afterwards directed man to work, by which he should obtain the reward.

Liberty indeed necessarily follows deliverance from prison, but not at

once the crown and throne. Joseph freed from his chains ought not on that

account to be set over Egypt. Mephibosheth brought out from squalor and

thirst, was not at once to be carried to the King’s table. Thus two things

must be distinctly conceived of in this benefit, the pardon of

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sin committed, with a deliverance from the curse of the law, and a bestowment of

the reward, or of the blessing.

Scripture in many places connects and distinguishes these, Gal. 4:4, 5,

“Christ was made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,”

to wit, as to the curse, that we might receive the adoption of sons, that

is the right to life, which flows from adoption. This Paul elsewhere, Acts

26:18, confirms, “by which faith”, says he, “we receive forgiveness

of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified”, that is, a

right to eternal life with other saints. Here belongs the gradation

between peace and glory which he weaves together, Rom. 5:1, 2, when he

says that being justified we have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of

the glory of God: peace has reference to deliverance from punishment, and

glorying supposes the bestowal of a right to life, which is the foundation

of our hope. On this account, Rom. 5:9, 11, he joins together the being

saved from wrath and glorying in God. This very thing Daniel had already

intimated, chap. 9, when he ascribes to the Messiah, who was about to come,

the propitiation of iniquity, by whom remission would be obtained, and

the bringing of an everlasting righteousness, by whose power a right to

life would be given. Nor does Christ mean anything else, when he promises

believers a transition from death to life, that is, not only deliverance

from death, but also the possession of life. John means the same thing,

when he says, that Christ not only washes us from sin by obtaining their

pardon, but also makes us kings and priests, who obtain the right to

happiness and glory, Rev. 1:5, 6.

Whence it appears that they are deceived, who hold that the remission of

sins and the imputation of righteousness differ only by reason of the

diverse terms from which and to which, as it is not the covering of

nakedness and the putting on of a garment, for this reason that sin and

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righteousness are contraries, one of which being posited the other is taken away.

For it is far otherwise with these things, as we have already said, they are so to be

joined together, as still not to be confounded, but to be distinguished, as really

differing from each other; or if the imputation of righteousness is put for a right

to life, it is with respect to remission after the manner of a part, constituting with

it the form of justification. Whence they are not to be compared with each other

as the covering of nakedness and the putting on of a garment which are really one

and the same thing; but as deliverance from punishment and royal dignity in a

guilty person.

Sin and righteousness are indeed direct contraries; but not the

righteousness, which signifies perseverance in righteousness and

perfection itself. For it is one thing to be free from pravity, but another

to have persisted in duty and to have acquired merit; Adam had the former,

not the latter. Thus between death and life there is no medium, but between

eternal death and a happy life the medium is the mortal and animal life,

a pious and holy life, but on earth, not in heaven, under the obligation

of meriting by obedience. So many things could come in still between the

flames of hell and the joys of heaven, deliverance from punishment, and

the possession of the reward, the punishment of slaves and the dignity

of sons. Who, therefore, confer upon us adoption and an inheritance, who

were slaves adjudged to eternal punishment, will he not also wonderfully

increase the benefit? It was much for us to be manumitted and to be made

freedmen; now to be pronounced children and heirs, this is the climax and

crowning blessing of mercy.

When Paul, Rom. 4:5–7, argues from the remission of sins to the imputation

of righteousness, he does not do this on account of their equivalency,

as if these two do not differ

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from each other, and signify one and the same thing. But on account of the

undivided connection between both, because remission of sins can be given to no

one, except on account of the imputation of righteousness, and imputation of

righteousness is given to no one, without his sins being forthwith pardoned.

Although he, who obtains the remission of all his sins, of omission as

well as of commission, is freed from the punishment, which he deserved

on account of those sins, and thus far can be pronounced righteous, or

rather justified and acquitted; still, accurately speaking, he cannot on

that account be considered to have omitted nothing really good, and to

have committed nothing evil. God by remission reckons a man not

unrighteous, not because he judges him never to have sinned and to be

without a stain, but because he condones and pardons the guilty whatever

evil he has committed. To pardon, however, and on account of rectitude

of conduct to reckon worthy of a reward and to honour, are far different.

See what was said in Topic 14. Question 13. Th. 28 and the following.

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5.

The Remission of Sins

Does remission of sins consist in an absolute removal of them, or in the pardon

of them? And, after the guilt is remitted, is a certain punishment retained, or is it

wholly remitted? The former we deny, the latter we affirm, against the

Romanists.

Because various questions are wont to be agitated concerning the remission of

sins, we must touch briefly upon them under three propositions.

The First, remission of sins does not consist in a removal of the

corruption or depraved quality, but in a gratuitous pardon of the

criminality and guilt arising from it, is opposed to the Romanists, who

to support their hypothesis concerning physical justification by infusion,

maintain that remission of sin consists in a real taking of it away, as

well as to corruption, as to its guilt: so that an infusion of

righteousness always succeeds remission, as light always follows the

scattering of the clouds of darkness.

But the following arguments prove the falsity of this opinion: 1. The mode

of speaking, and the proper signification

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of remission among men, which does not imply the extinction of sin, but only the

pardoning of it; as a prince by remitting a crime does not take it away but only

pardons it and frees from the punishment due on account of it. 2. The

synonymous phrases of Scripture teach the same thing, when remission is

expressed by a covering, Ps. 32:1, not that they are not, but that in the sight of

God the judge they do not come into condemnation, for which reason we ought to

put on Christ, that his righteousness may cover our sins before God; by a not

imputing, ver. 2, that on account of them we be not punished as we deserve; by a

not remembering, Jer. 31:34, that God may not deal with them practically

according to his justice in punishing them; by a blotting out, Ps. 51:1 and Ps. 103,

Acts 3:19, Col. 2:14, not of the corruption, but of the guilt, as a creditor expunges

from his account-book a debt, from which he wishes to release the debtor, by

destroying and blotting out the very handwriting, that it may have no longer any

force; so God destroys the sins which are written in his book and for which we are

accountable, when he pardons them, by freeing us from the guilt, which attached

to us on account of them; by a casting of them behind his back, and throwing

them into the sea, Mic. 7:19, that they may no more come into judgment; by a

purging, by way of propitiation and of offering, Heb. 1:3, and 9:14, that the guilt

of sin, which makes us hateful and abominable to God, may be cleansed, in

allusion to the sprinkling of the old sacrifices, which did not take away inherent

pollution, but adhering guilt; by a turning away of his face, Ps. 51:9, and a putting

away, 2 Sam. 12:13, and similar phrases, which rightly mean a juridical pardoning

of guilt, not a real removal cf pollution.

3. If remission of sin was the taking away of inherent pravity; as the

former is perfect, so also the latter ought to

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be perfect, which is repugnant to Scripture, which testifies that sin always

remains in us, and belongs to the experience of saints, who always complain of

the struggles of the flesh and the Spirit. 4. If not to impute sin is to expel it and to

infuse righteousness; from the opposite to impute sin will be to infuse sin. The

falsity of this appears from the case of Christ, to whom sin was imputed, but not

infused.

Although by remission of sins actual guilt, or the obligation to

punishment is taken away, not forthwith is potential guilt taken away,

or the intrinsic merit of sin which flows from its inherent corruption,

because remission consists only in this, that the guilty person is freed

by the judge from the actual punishment due to him, not however immediately

from all vitiosity. Whence Paul indeed says, Rom. 8:1, there is no

condemnation to them which are in Christ, but not there is nothing

condemnable, or worthy of condemnation, because as long as sin remains

in us (now it remains as long as we live,) there is always something

condemnable, although on account of the interceding act of grace of the

judge it does not any more actually condemn us.

There is a theoretical covering of sinners, which belongs to omniscience,

according to which it is certain that nothing can be covered by God, except

what he wholly destroys and abolishes, and another practical, which has

respect to the exercise of justice, and thus can be covered by him, what

is still in the subject, when God does not see it so as to notice it, blots

it out of his book so that it may not come into account. Thus sins are

said to be covered before God not because they are absolutely taken away,

as they are not, but because they are not allotted to punishment. Whence

Augustine on Ps. 32, Concil. 2, “Therefore why does he say his sins are

covered? In order that they might not be seen. For what was it for God

to see sins, unless to punish them?”

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Although the remission of sins is expressed by various phrases, which

denote a real taking away, it does not follow that they imply a total

abolition of sin, because in remission there is something real, since by

it the actual obligation to punishment and the punishment itself are

really and truly taken away from the person. Again, these phrases, such

as to take away, to bear away, to remove, to wash out, to purge sins, are

partly explained by others, which signify the removal of guilt, not

however the non-existence of sin, and are partly drawn from the effect

of sacrifices, which was the propitiation and purgation of sin, not by

a removal of its corruption, but by a taking away of its guilt and

condonation of the punishment.

Although we do not deny that sin is really abolished in those to whom it

is remitted; it does not follow on that account that remission itself

consists in that abolition. Because the former is concerned only with the

guilt of sin, the latter with its pollution; the former considers sin with

its relation or obligation to punishment, the latter as a quality inherent

in the subject; that is performed at the same time and at once, this little

by little and successively. Nor does an infusion of righteousness

forthwith follow remission of sin from the nature of the thing, as he who

remits another’s debit, ought not at once to give a new sum of money to

him: and we pardon the sins of others, nor on that account do we expel

them from them. Since there is one action which is done concerning some

one and about him objectively, another which is done in some one

subjectively.

Second proposition: remission of sin is total and absolute, as well as

to guilt as to punishment. This also is against the Romanists, who urge

a partial and not a total remission, of guilt, but not of punishment, or

of eternal, but not of temporal punishment. Concil. Trid. Sess. vi. c.

30, “If any one says that after justification is received, criminality

is so remitted to any penitent

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sinner and the guilt of eternal punishment destroyed, that no exposedness to

temporal punishment to be taken away either in this world or in the future

remains, before he can gain access into the kingdom of heaven, let him be

accursed.”

For guilt to be remitted, while the punishment is not remitted, is absurd,

because there is no punishment without guilt, and remission of guilt is

nothing else than deliverance from punishment. 2. It is repugnant to

Scripture, which nowhere speaks of the remission of sin unless on the

supposition that no punishment of it is exacted, otherwise a great

disturbance would be introduced into the Scriptures, and nothing could

be considered fixed and certain in them; and great darkness would be poured

over both the divine promises and threatenings, as often as either

remission of sin is promised, or denied, whether it is only of the guilt,

or also of the punishment, and whether of all or of a certain part of each.

Again, how could God be said to cast behind his back, not to impute, to

destroy, not to remember, if he still exacts the punishment of them, that

is, recollects and imputes them to punishment? 3. The common manner of

speaking does not suffer it to be said that his sin has been remitted from

whom some punishment of sin is exacted; for thus any one might be said

at the same time and at once to let go and to keep hold of something, which

is a contradiction, as no one would say that a debt had been remitted to

a person from whom the payment of it is still required. 4. The nature of

remission, which is entirely gratuitous, cannot allow this, because what

is obtained by the payment of any price, cannot be called gratuitous. 5.

The justified cannot have peace with God according to Paul, Rom. 5:1, if

they are still to be disturbed by punishments properly so called, either

in life, or after death. 6. In believers, after the reception of

justification there is no condemnation, Rom. 8:1. Therefore no punishment

remains, since condemnation is the devoting to punishment.

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7. This hypothesis supposes either that Christ has not fully satisfied,

for us, or that God demands the payment of the same debt twice, both of

which are impious and blasphemous. Nor can it be replied, “Subordinates

are not at variance; because the satisfactions of men depend upon

Christ’s satisfaction, and from it have the power of satisfying; that

Christ satisfied immediately for the guilt and exposedness to eternal

death, mediately, however, for temporal punishment also, inasmuch as he

furnishes the grace, by which we ourselves make satisfaction to God.”

Because, 1. It is gratuitously supposed that our satisfactions can be

subordinated to Christ’s satisfaction, since they are expressly opposed

to it; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Gal. 2:21. 2. This mediate satisfaction is unheard of in Scripture, which

never says that Christ satisfied that he might acquire for us the power

to satisfy; but by himself made expiation for sins, and thus reconciled

us to God, and freed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for

us. Now how could Christ be said to have borne our sins in his own body

on the tree, that is, their punishment, and to have freed us from the curse,

and to have blotted out and taken out of the way the handwriting which

was against us, Col. 2:14, and by one offering to have perfected forever

them that are sanctified, Heb. 10:14, if believers are still bound by the

guilt of some punishment, for which they are yet to make satisfaction?

Finally, the mode of speaking does not suffer it to be said that he made

satisfaction for us, unless he has canceled our debt with his own money.

Not less absurd is the answer, “Our satisfactions are required, that the

satisfaction of Christ and the remission acquired by him may be applied

to us.” Because although the satisfaction of Christ must be applied to

particular believers to avail them, this ought to be done by the word and

sacraments externally, by the spirit and faith internally, but it

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cannot be done by satisfactions, which ought to be offered to God, not to men; nor

have we ever heard it said that the remission of a debt is applied by an exaction of

it, and that this rests upon the debtor in order that he may enjoy the payment

made for him by his security, so that the money which the sponsor paid for him,

he also should pay out of his own funds to the creditor afterwards, or certainly

some part of it. Again, if, in order that Christ’s satisfaction for temporal

punishments may be applied to us, our satisfactions are required, why are they

not equally necessary, in order that the same may be applied for guilt and eternal

punishment? Of if they confess that they are not required for that application,

why should they be required for the other, since no reason for the difference can

be assigned? Finally, if Christ’s satisfaction ought to be applied by our satisfaction,

our satisfaction again would have to be applied by another satisfaction, and so on

to infinity.

What Scripture sometimes says of the exercise of judgment against the

church and believers, as 1 Pet. 4:17, 1 Cor. 11:32, and elsewhere, does

not favor the error of the Romanists. Because the judgment of a vindictive

judge is one thing, the judgment of paternal chastisement is another: The

one is legal, the other evangelical; the one proceeding from wrath and

hatred, the other from love and mercy; the one for destruction and death,

the other for correction and salvation: the one is exercised against the

wicked and rebels, the other towards the pious and believers, not to

destroy, but to teach, and make more cautious afterwards. Whence Augustine,

Sermo. de Poenit., “What you bewail is medicine, not a punishment;

chastisement not condemnation; be unwilling to repel the rod, if you do

not wish to be repelled from the inheritance.” The former is incompatible

with remission, not the latter.

Although afflictions of themselves and in their own nature are truly the

punishment of sin according to the threatening

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of the law, Lev. 26, still on account of our gratuitous reconciliation with God in

Christ they cease to be punishments. And they become either fatherly

chastisements, 1 Cor. 11:32, Heb. 12:8, or necessary evidences, that we may be

manifested to ourselves and to others, James 1:2, 3, or witnesses or testimonies

concerning the truth of doctrine, Acts 5:41. On this account they are reckoned

even among the blessings of God, Ps. 94:12, Job 5:17, Phil. 1:29, Heb. 12:6, 7. And

they are connected with joy, Acts 5:41, James 1:2, Heb. 12:11. And they have

glorying as an attendant, Rom. 5:2, 3. If therefore, they are still called

punishments after the remission of sin, this is not said properly, because they are

without the formal reason of punishment, to wit, that it should be inflicted from

the wrath of the judge as the avenging of sin and the destruction of the sinner; but

improperly, both because they were of themselves the punishment of sin, and

because they tend to the destruction of the flesh and of the old man.

This full and total remission of sins being established, the treasury of

Papal indulgences sinks and that most foul trafficking of the mystery of

iniquity is swept away. For if the remission granted to believers is entire

and total, freeing them from all guilt and punishment, why are necessary

satisfactions further invented, either personal, or another’s for the

taking away of punishment, if not eternal, at least temporal? I dismiss

the various arguments, which prove not only the weakness but also the

falsity of that error, concerning which we will speak in the proper place,

from which it will appear that this comment is not only unwritten, but

also contrary to what is written, and unreasonable, and filled with

innumerable contradictions and impieties. Whence it should not seem

wonderful if this occasioned, as is well known, the work of the Reformation

in the year 1519; at Zurich by Zuingle in the year

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1517, at Wittenberg by Luther, who could not endure that most disgraceful traffic

in sacred things.

Nor ought we to recur to the indulgences of the Fathers, which have nothing

in common with the modern Papal; as they cannot be ignorant, who have any

knowledge of the ancient discipline. Since it is evident that in the

ancient church very severe Canonical punishment and satisfactions were

imposed upon public sinners by penitential Canons, specimens of which can

be seen not only in the Canons of the Elibertine, Ancyran and Nicene

Councils, but also in the decree of Burchard, Yuon, and of Gratian, which

were not rendered properly to God in the court of heaven as a satisfactory

punishment for their sins, but only to the church itself for the extinction

and reparation of the scandal, by which it was injured. But since on

account of that rigor many were reduced to desperation and relapsed into

Gentrilism, a modification of indulgences was introduced, which sinners

obtained either by the intercession of martyrs, or received from their

Bishops, their serious grief being regarded, lest they should be swallowed

up of sadness, by which, the severity being relaxed, they were restored

to the communion before the time required by the Canons, and a dispensation

of Canonical punishments was granted to them, as may be seen in Cyprian,

Epist. lib. iii., Epist. xv., xvi., xvii., and Can. v., and xi., of the

Council of Nice, and xxi., xxii., of Ancyran, and xxxvii. Council.

Agathensis. Afterwards most persons withdrawing from the yoke of the

penitential Canons, partly changes and partly redemptions of Canonical

satisfactions were introduced. Whence by Poenitentiali Rom. apud

Burchardum, a fast of three days was redeemed by a recitation of fifty

Psalms, and by the feeding of some destitute person, or by three denarii

from him who did not know the Psalms. This gate of redemptions, however,

being once opened, the sale of indulgences at length began in the eleventh

century under Urban II, and to make them

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of greater importance, various comments were devised concerning their value and

efficacy, not only in the court of earth, as to Canonical punishment, but also in the

court of heaven, and as to the satisfaction to be rendered to divine justice for sins.

Whence it is evident how much these indulgences differ from the ancient, which

were nothing else than relaxations of Canonical punishments, and dispensations

from their severity for the consolation of private persons and the common

edification of the church. The modern, however, are held to be relaxations of the

satisfactory punishments of divine justice.

Third proposition: Remission is extended to all the sins entirely of

believers, of whatever kind they may be, future as well as past and present,

but in their own order. This question is moved with regard to future sins.

Are they also remitted at the same time and at once with the past and

present sins? For there are some even of our theologians of great

reputation, who think that, in the justification of the sinner, all his

sins, the future equally with the past are at the same time and at once

remitted, both because the righteousness of Christ, which is the

foundation of our justification, is wholly, however great it is, imputed

at once and at the same time to us, and because justification ought to

leave no room for condemnation, Rom. 8:1. Nay, being justified they have

peace with God, Rom. 5:1, and are called blessed, Ps. 32:1, which could

not be said, if they could still be subjected to condemnation on account

of future sins not remitted.

We think the difficulty can be overcome by a distinction. All sins, future

as well as past, cannot be said to be remitted at the same time and once

formally and explicitly, because as they are not accidents of a nonentity,

so as long as the sin is not, punishment is not due to it, and since it

is not due, it cannot be remitted; as a debt not yet contracted cannot

be canceled. Besides for the remission of sin there is

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required a confession and repentance of it, which cannot be made unless it has

been committed. Whence we are ordered to seek remission of sins every day,

which is to be applied to sins committed, not to anticipate their perpetration. But

because in justification the righteousness of Christ is applied to us, which is the

foundation upon which the remission of all our sins rests, and because from the

covenant of grace God promises that he will not remember our sins; nothing

prevents us from saying that in this sense sins are remitted eminently and

virtually; because in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us is the foundation of

that remission. And thus all our sins are remitted by God whether past, or present,

or future, but with respect to the time in which they are committed, so that past

and present are actually remitted, the future when they are committed will most

certainly be remitted according to God’s promise. Thus the state of justification

remaining undisturbed, and the acceptation of the person remaining

uninterrupted, and the general remission of sins already committed, the following

and future as to particular absolution are not actually pardoned before their

commission; nay, before they have been repented of, either generally or

particularly.

I confess if we regard the eternal purpose of God, in which all things,

even the future, appeared to God as present, Acts 15:18, and the merit

and acquisition of Christ, who offered to God a perfectly sufficient

ransom for the expiation of all sins, so that as to the promise given by

God in the covenant of grace concerning their remission, remission under

this relation can be said to be extended to all sins whether past or future.

But if the actual remission itself is regarded, which is made by an

intimation of the absolving sentence in the heart of the believer and

penitent, it can be referred only to sins already committed; so that to

take away the guilt of subsequent sins there is required a particular

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application of remission, not only as to the sense and assurance of remission, but

also as to the true and real forgiveness itself.

As the person, whose sins are pardoned, can be considered, either as to

the state of grace, in which he is constituted by justification, or as

to the particular acts, which he can afterwards commit; so remission can

be viewed in two aspects: Either generally as to state, according to which

God receives the believing and penitent sinner into grace on account of

Christ, and bestows upon him the pardon of all the sins of which he is

guilty; or specially as to particular acts of sin, into which he afterwards

falls, for taking away the guilt of which a particular absolution is needed.

Not that the state of justification into which he is translated can be

dissolved; or remission once bestowed be abrogated; because God remains

always his Father, but a Father angry on account of sins recently committed,

which although they cannot constitute him a child of wrath, on account

of the immutability of vocation and justification; still they make him

a child under wrath, so that he deservedly incurs the fatherly indignation

of God, and has need forthwith of a new justification, or particular

remission of these sins through faith and repentance.

Although the justified believer has not as yet the formal remission of

future sins, he does not cease to be happy and free from actual

condemnation, because he has the foundation from which he can infer with

positive certainty that it is prepared for him according to God’s promise.

Nor if the whole righteousness of Christ is at the same time imputed, does

its entire fruit flow out to us at once, but successively in proportion

to the inrushings of sin, for the remission of which the believer ought

to apply that ransom to himself every day.

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6.

Adoption

What is the adoption which is given to us in justification?

The other part of justification is adoption, or the bestowal of a right to life,

flowing from Christ’s righteousness, which acquired for us not only deliverance

from death, but also a right to life, by the adoption with which he endows us. For

on this account he is said to have been made under the law by an economical

subjection, that he might redeem us from the bondage of the law, and confer

upon us the adoption or the right of sons, Gal. 4:4, 5, on which the right to life

depends, because if children, then heirs, Rom. 8:17; and John 1:12 says, to them

who received him, that is, who believed on his name, he gave power to become

the sons of God. Where exousia does not signify authority or power, because it

has reference here to inferiors, nor faculty or potency, by which a person can

make himself a son, but axiōma, that is, the dignity and right of sons.

Adoption here, however, is not taken by us, as it is elsewhere, for an

external calling and reception into the covenant, such as was formerly

the case with the Jews, whose is said to be the adoption, Rom. 9:4. Nor

for the sense

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and use of adoption, which is made by emancipation, such as belongs to believers

of the New Testament, who because they are made adults and are no longer

minors, are said to have received the Spirit of adoption, and are no longer called

servants, nor are held in the manner of servants, but are sons and heirs, who

rejoice in this right, Gal. 4:5. Nor for the full manifestation of adoption, which will

be in the resurrection, in which sense believers are said to wait for the adoption,

that is, the resurrection of their body, Rom. 8:23. But for a juridical act of God, by

which from his mere mercy, he adopts through faith in Christ, those whom he

elected to salvation from eternity, into his family and bestow upon them the name

and right of sons as to inheritance.

As, however, the word adoption is derived from a custom received among

men; so the action itself has a multiplied analogy with civil adoption,

although it differs also in various things and is better. Adoption is

defined by lawyers as a lawful act imitating nature, introduced for the

consolation of those who have no children. So that there is required here,

firstly an adopter, who can have the authority of a father, who, destitute

of children, supplies the defect of nature by law, and receives a stranger

into his own family, and promises to him paternal favor. 2. The person

adopted, who passes from his father’s family into another, and, state

being changed, changes his name and life, and has a right to the paternal

goods and especially to the inheritance; and in turn binds himself to all

the duties of filial obedience. Thus in this matter, adoption is not an

act of nature, but of a gracious will, which our heavenly Father wished

to exercise toward us, in which sense, James 1:18, he is said to have

begotten us of his own will, and the very name adoption denotes this

voluntary and most free disposition of God. By it God transfers us

strangers and foreigners, who were the servants and slaves of Satan, from

the family of the old Adam

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and the power of darkness, and admits us into his own family and the kingdom of

light, and gives us the dignity of sons, in which he not only bestows upon us the

glorious name of dearly beloved sons, 1 John 3:1, Rev. 2:17, and 3:12, with the

distinctions and honors pertaining to them, but also gives us a right to all his

goods of grace as well as of glory, all of which come under the name of inheritance,

as acquired not by any merit, but are given by the mere grace of the Father to us

in virtue of our adoption by him. And we in turn, answering by faith to this great

love, bind ourselves to filial worship and obedience to him, 2 Cor. 6:18, 1 Pet. 1:15,

16, Mal. 1:6, 8.

Of whatever kind may be the analogy, still a great and remarkable

difference always intervenes. For what the law does among men; this is

a work of mere goodwill. That was sought out for the solace of

childlessness to supply a defect of nature; but this was made for our

consolation only, not for God’s, who was perfectly well-pleased with his

only-begotten Son. That was ordained for the succession to the goods of

a deceased father, but this only for a participation in the goods of a

Father living forever. That can give the name, the titles, and

distinctions of sons, but not the mind and qualities. But in this God by

adopting changes the heart, and to whom he graciously gives the right of

sons, he also impresses upon them the mind and character of sons by the

spirit of adoption. That does not make them good, but supposes them to

be so, for neither would a man adopt any one as a son, unless he perceived

in him something lovely. But this is a work of mere grace, which does not

suppose anything good in us, who were enemies, rebels and most corrupt;

thus God adopts us, not because we are good, but to make us good.

Here belongs the testamentary disposition, which the Father is said to

have instituted for giving us the inheritance, which is nothing else than

the final and immutable will sealed in

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the Scriptures, and confirmed by the blood and death of Christ, by which he

pronounces elect believers his heirs, which Christ, Luke 22:29, clearly intimates,

“I appoint (or give by a will) unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed

unto me.” And Heb. 9:15, “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new

testament,” says Paul, “that by means of death, for the redemption of the

transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might

receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” The goods left by this testament do

not pertain only to the inheritance of this world, Rom. 4:13, according to which all

things are ours, 1 Cor. 3:21, but it is especially the inheritance of heaven or of the

kingdom of heaven, Matt. 25, James 2:5. And so of God himself, who, as he is the

highest Good, is often called our portion and inheritance, Gen. 15:1, Ps. 16:5, Jer.

10:16, as believers are the portion and inheritance of God, Ps. 33:12.

Now although this privilege as to the thing is common to all the believers

of the Old Testament, no less than to those of the New, who were both sons

of God, and had a right to the heavenly inheritance, to which after death

they were admitted; still it is certain that the condition of believers

of the New Testament as to the mode is far better in this respect; who

are no longer in an infantile age, held like slaves under teachers and

the rudiments of the world, when they were not able to have either the

sense or the use of their right, animated by the spirit of bondage, but

now being adults and emancipated by Christ, they are admitted to the

sanctuary of the Father, and have a full sense and fruit of their right,

the Spirit of adoption being received, in virtue of which they can

confidently cry out, Abba Father. To this Paul refers entirely, when he

says, Gal. 4:4, 5, “Christ was made under the law, to redeem them that

were under the law,” to wit, under the curse of the moral law and under

the yoke of the ceremonial,

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“that we might receive the adoption of sons,” not that only, by which we are

separated from the children of wrath and of the devil, but also that, by which we

far excel infants who do not differ from slaves. This is more copiously proved in

Topic 12. Cov. of Grace, Ques. 10.

From these positions it is gathered that to no purpose do some anxiously

ask here, how justification and adoption differ from each other, and

whether adoption is by nature prior to justification, as some hold, who

think it is the first and immediate fruit of faith, by which we are united

and joined to Christ, or whether posterior to and consequent upon it, as

others. For since it is evident from what has been said that justification

is a benefit, by which God, being reconciled to us in Christ, absolves

us from the guilt of sins, and gives us a right to life, it follows that

adoption is included in justification itself as a part, which with the

remission of sins constitutes the whole of this benefit; nor can it be

distinguished from adoption, unless inasmuch as it is taken strictly for

remission of sins, since in its formal conception it includes also

acceptation to life, which flows from the imputation of Christ’s

righteousness.

Nor is adoption here to be confounded with our union to Christ. For

although it necessarily flows from it, as its cause and foundation, since

from union with Christ depends the communion of all his benefits, both

of justification, and of sanctification, and of glory: still it cannot,

if we wish to speak accurately, be identified with it; but stands related

to it as an effect to its cause. For hence it is that, being united to

Christ as our head and the first-begotten of God, his most perfect

righteousness becomes ours by the imputation of God, and the reception

of faith, upon which depends both absolution from sins, and the adoption

or acceptation to life and the inheritance, which is the right of sons.

For as many as obtain that dignity, are not only received into God’s

family, to be members of his house, Gal. 6:10, to be always

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under the fatherly protection of God, depending upon him for nutrition,

education and perpetual conservation, but have a right to the inheritance, Rom.

8:17, that is, the possession of all the goods of the Father, and the enjoyment of

God himself, which is our inheritance.

From this adoption springs Christian liberty; which is not an immunity

from all laws, divine and human, and a license to live according to our

pleasure, and to indulge the lusts of the flesh, as the Libertines profess,

changing liberty into licentiousness; not an exemption from the evil

obligation of subjection, and from the tributes and jurisdiction of

magistrates as the various Anabaptists maintain, and which the Romish

clergy claim for themselves against the express teachings of Scripture.

But it is a spiritual and mystical manumission, obtained for us by the

blood of Christ, by which from the spiritual bondage of the law, of sin,

of the world and Satan, by whose chains we were before bound, we are brought

into the liberty of the sons of God, concerning which it is treated in

John 8:32, 36, Rom. 6:15, 22, and 8:2, 3, Gal. 3:13, and 4:6, 26, and 5:1,

Heb. 2:15, and elsewhere, through which being called into fellowship with

God, as our Father, and with Christ, as our Brother, we obtain dominion

over the creatures, and are heirs of the kingdom of heaven.

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7.

The Justification of Faith

Does faith justify as properly and by itself, or only relatively and instrumentally?

The former we deny, the latter we affirm, against the Socinians, Remonstrants

and Romanists.

Since justification can be viewed, either actively, on the part of God who justifies,

or passively, on the part of man who is justified, a twofold handling of it can also

be adopted: either with respect to the benefit itself conferred upon us by God, and

of the righteousness imputed to us, or with respect to its reception and

application made by faith, of which we now treat.

Here, however, it is not controverted, whether faith justifies, for

Scripture so clearly asserts this that no one dares to deny it. But it

is enquired concerning the manner in which it justifies, in describing

which there is a wonderful discrepancy of opinions.

All our opponents agree in this, that faith justifies properly and by

itself, and so is our very righteousness: but with some differences. For

the Socinians maintain that faith or the

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act of believing is the cause of our justification, so that there is no other

immediate and formal righteousness by which we are just before God than our

faith; and justification is a universal affection of faith; “Not because faith contains

in itself the power of effecting righteousness and life; but because it is considered

such by the gracious acceptation of God; by which it pleased him to reckon faith

for perfect righteousness, or for a perfect fulfillment of the law, no otherwise than

formally under the legal covenant, the perfect obedience of the law was that

universal righteousness upon which life depended.” As Socinus, de Servato.,

frequently expresses it, Smalzius in Disput. cont. Frani., Volkelius, lib. iv. cap. 3.

With them the Remonstrants agree on this point, in their Confession, c. 21.

The Romanists hold that faith is the disposing and sine qua non cause,

which not only disposes to righteousness, but also begins and merits

righteousness itself. Concil. Trident. Sess. vi. cap. 6, “If any one says

that the wicked are justified by faith alone, so that he understands

nothing else to be required to co-operate for obtaining the grace of

justification, and is necessary from no part, to be prepared and disposed

with the motion of his own will, let him be accursed.” And Bellarmine,

lib. i. de Justifi., cap. 13, “Faith”, says he, “justifies as the

beginning and root of justification, because it is the first motion

towards God, for it behooves one approaching God to believe that God is.”

This opinion is founded upon a false hypothesis, as if justification

consists in an infusion of righteousness, and is a certain physical motion,

which demands previous dispositions in the subject before the

introduction of the form.

The Orthodox, however, differ wholly from them. Since they teach that

faith is the organic and instrumental cause of our justification, and that

justification is ascribed to it, not properly and by itself, inasmuch as

it is a work, or as if it was the righteousness itself, by which we are

justified before God, or as if by its own worth or by the indulgence of

God it deserves justification in whole or in part; but improperly and

metonymically, inasmuch as Christ’s righteousness, which

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faith apprehends, is the foundation and meritorious cause on account of which we

are justified. So that it is said to justify relatively and organically: relatively,

because the object of faith is our true righteousness before God; organically,

because faith is the instrument for receiving on our part, and for applying to

ourselves, that righteousness.

Two things therefore must be done by us here. Firstly, negatively, the

false mode of the justification of faith, introduced by the Socinians and

Romanists, must be put out of the way. Secondly, affirmatively, the true

and genuine sense must be established. As to the former, faith, or the

act of believing, is not considered as our righteousness with God by a

gracious acceptation: 1. Because what is only the instrument for receiving

righteousness cannot be our righteousness itself formally. Now faith

holds here only the relation of an instrument, as is evident both from

its proper act, which is instrumental, and consisting in the reception

of Christ, John 1:12, and the acceptance of righteousness, Rom. 5:17, and

of the remission of sins, Acts 26:18; and from the subordination of the

causes of justification to the same effect, to wit, the grace of God, the

redemption of Christ, and faith, which is alluded to by Paul, Rom. 3:24,

where faith cannot sustain any other meaning than that of an instrument,

since the grace of God holds the relation of an efficient principle, and

the redemption of Christ that of the meritorious cause.

2. Because faith is distinguished from the righteousness itself, which

is imputed to us, both because it is said to be of faith, and by faith,

Rom. 1:17, and 3:22, Phil. 3:9, and because Christ with his obedience and

satisfaction is that righteousness, which is imputed to us, Isa. 53:11,

Jer. 23:6, 1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 5:21, Gal. 3:13, 14, which faith indeed

apprehends as its object, but with which it cannot be identified. Whence

Scripture nowhere says that God willed to count our faith

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for righteousness, but that he made Christ unto us righteousness, that he is

Jehovah our righteousness, and that we are the righteousness of God in him.

3. Because we are not justified except by a perfect righteousness. Since

we have to deal with the strict justice of God, which cannot be deceived.

Now no faith here is perfect. Nor can it be said that it is not indeed

a perfect righteousness of itself, but is admitted as such by God, and

considered such by a gratuitous lowering of the law’s demands. Because

in the court of divine justice, which demands an adequate and absolutely

perfect payment, there cannot be room for a gracious acceptation, which

is an imaginary payment. Again, since our justification is a forensic and

judicial act, where God shows himself just, Rom. 3:25, it does not admit

of a gracious acceptation, which never proceeds from the authority and

sentence of the judge, but from the voluntary and private stipulation of

the parties.

4. If faith is counted for righteousness, we will be justified by works,

because thus faith cannot but have the relation of a work which justifies.

And yet it is clear that in this business Paul always opposes faith to

works, as incompatible, and two antagonistic means, by which man is

justified either by his own obedience and in himself, by the law, or by

another’s obedience by the gospel. Nor does the difference between these

modes of justification consist in this, that in the former a perfect

obedience and in the latter an imperfect is accepted of God as perfect.

Since the mode of justification would be always the same, by works. But

in this, that since in both cases a perfect righteousness is required,

in the former from the strictness of the law God demands a personal, here

from the forbearance of the gospel he admits another’s, to wit, the

righteousness of Christ. Thus faith cannot be said to justify properly

and

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by itself, unless we slide back to the Old Covenant and return to legal justification.

The faith of Abraham, it is said, was imputed to him for righteousness,

Gen. 15:6, and Rom. 4:3. Not properly, because in this way he would have

been justified by works, which the apostle denies in the same place. But

1. Relatively and metonymically, so that faith is taken for its object,

Gal. 3:25, that is, for that which faith believes, to wit, that promise

concerning the Seed, not so much bodily, as spiritual, from Gal. 3:16,

which he received by faith, was the foundation of his justification. This

is confirmed by the circumstance that what does not inhere and what is

contradistinguished from works is here said to be imputed. Thus in this

sense faith is said to be imputed for righteousness, by a hypallage,

because righteousness is imputed by faith, as the apostle declares in

equivalent terms, ver. 5, 6, and 3:22. Nor is this to wrest the Scriptures,

and to express coldly the power and efficacy of faith, as Forbes, in consid.

pacif. de justif., c. iv., falsely charges upon our Divines. Nay not more

clearly and truly can the genuine sense of that imputation be set forth.

For since that thing, which is imputed to us for righteousness, ought to

be our righteousness before God, that is, that on account of which God

justifies us; nor can faith be that, as we have already said, and as he

himself does not deny, when he recognizes it to be the instrumental cause;

it is clear that this phrase cannot be taken properly, but only

metonymically with regard to the object. Nor is anything more usual in

Scripture than for a faculty to be taken for its object. This does not

prevent—2. faith from being said to be imputed for righteousness

organically, because it is the instrumental cause, which apprehends the

righteousness of Christ, by a metonymy of the effect for the efficient,

as it is elsewhere called eternal life, John 17:3, and 12:50, that is,

the instrumental cause of life.

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In vain, however, does Arminius contend that the righteousness of Christ

is not imputed for righteousness, since it is that very righteousness

itself, to wit, supposing that is not properly righteousness which is

imputed to us for righteousness. Because he falsely confounds, to impute

for righteousness by gracious acceptation that which is not a

righteousness, and to impute to a person for righteousness that which he

did not have. The first sense has no place here, but only the latter,

according to which what Abraham had not, is said to be imputed to him for

righteousness, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, that is,

reckoned ours, which was not ours. Thus imputation does not deny the truth

of the thing, or the perfection of the righteousness, but only the truth

of the possession, by ascribing to a person what was not properly his.

What is said concerning any one in Scripture ought to be altogether in

him, but according to that manner, which itself teaches. Now the manner

in which justification and salvation are ascribed, to faith, does not

consist in its own proper efficiency, as if our faith wrought or effected

them, but they are placed only in its fiducial apprehension and

application. Nor otherwise are we said to please God by faith, Heb. 11:6,

and to be purged of sin, Acts 15:9, than because it applies to us the

righteousness and blood of Christ, who purges us from sins and makes us

acceptable to God.

It is one thing for blessings to be conferred according to faith, that

is, under the condition of faith, under which they are promised in the

Word, which we acknowledge with the Scriptures: Another, for faith to

justify properly and by itself, or to count faith itself for righteousness,

and thus to impute it for righteousness to the believer. There faith holds

the relation of an instrument. Here, however, that of a principal cause

and foundation, which we deny.

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Secondly, against the Romanists we prove that faith does not justify

dispositively, or meritoriously, as the beginning and root of

righteousness: 1. Because the Holy Spirit nowhere ascribes to faith the

beginning, or only a part, or disposition to justification. 2. Because

thus the antithesis of the apostle between works and faith would not hold

good, since faith would always justify like a work. 3. Because

justification as being a forensic act takes place at once and in a moment,

nor can it admit of a beginning and progress. 4. Because thus we could

be said to be justified on account of faith. This the Scripture never says,

but always either by faith, or through faith, as by an instrument. Nor

if in various passages these prepositions, by, and through, have a

causality properly so called, as when they are connected with the death

and blood of Christ, does it follow that they have the same force when

used concerning the justification of faith. Nay, since it is evident that

a man cannot be justified by two righteousnesses, one in himself, the other

in Christ; if the righteousness and blood of Christ is the proper cause

of his justification, this cannot be ascribed to faith, but only the

instrumental cause. 5. This opinion falsely supposes that justification

is a physical motion inhering in the subject, which needs previous

dispositions by which it may be acquired, so as to be introduced into the

subject, since it is a forensic act, as was proved before, to which man

holds himself objectively, not subjectively. And although faith is

required on the part of man for receiving this benefit, it does not follow

that it has the relation of a disposition, by which the sinner is disposed

to the infusion of righteousness.

Faith is viewed in different lights, either in the act itself of

justification, or in the person of the justified, or in the effect of

justification. In the person of the justified, it is well called the

beginning of righteousness, not imputed but inherent,

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because it is the root of all virtues. Thus in the effect of justification it is the

principle and cause of new obedience. But in the act of justification, it can be

nothing else than an instrument apprehending and applying to man that which

justifies, so that he is justified not by the merit of faith, but only by it as a means.

Although justification is drawn away from works as to merit, and a

properly-called efficiency, it does not follow that the same is ascribed

to faith in the same manner. Nay, because it is taken away from works,

it cannot for the same reason be ascribed to faith, because it would thus

justify as a work, nor could we be said to be justified without works.

It suffices, therefore, in order to save the opposition of the apostle,

that faith should be substituted by him in the place of works, because

by faith we most surely obtain, what the Jews in vain sought in works,

although it acts here not meritoriously, but only instrumentally.

Faith is said to save us, Luke 7:50, not by meriting something in order

to justification, but only receptively and organically, because it was

the instrument receptive of that benefit: and nothing is more frequent,

than by a metalepsis to ascribe to an instrument the effect of the

principal cause; as when the gospel is said to be the power of God unto

salvation, Rom. 1:16, the diligent hand is said to increase the house,

the plough to enrich the farmer, the hand of the giver to relieve the poor,

and the like. Nor if elsewhere the greatness of the faith of the

Canaanitish woman is extolled, Matt. 15:28, to whom Christ granted the

sought for blessing, is its merit and efficiency on that account denoted,

believing indeed she was healed, because faith being the medium God

bestowed this blessing upon her, but believing he healed her, not on this

account, that faith properly speaking either effected or merited the

healing.

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Therefore the true mode of the justification of faith, is no other than

instrumental. 1. Because its proper act consists in the reception of

Christ, and his righteousness, as was said before. 2. Because it justifies

in no other manner than by its being directed to the death and obedience

of Christ, to wit, by apprehending and applying Christ to itself, as a

ransom given for us, and a propitiation for sin, 1 John 2:2. 3. Because

faith in the Scriptures is described by eating, looking, and touching,

which have only an instrumental causality, not a proper efficiency, as

the looking at the serpent did not of itself cure, but relatively to the

brazen serpent, nor does eating nourish except by food thrown into the

mouth. 4. Because justifying faith stands related in no other way to

justification, than the faith of miracles to the working of miracles, not

effectively, but organically, by apprehending the special promise given

concerning them.

Not without reason, however, is this ascribed above all other things to

the believers, because it alone of all the virtues can subsist with grace,

as consisting in the mere reception and apprehension of an object placed

beyond itself; whence it is said to be of faith that it might be by grace,

Rom. 4:16, to wit, as man owes this entire blessing to God, he has no reason

for glorying in himself. For if he were justified by works, or inherent

righteousness, he would seem to have something in which to glory, but when

he is justified by faith, which gives nothing to God, but only receives,

all glorying is excluded. This Toletus, in 3, Rom. Ann. xvii., well

explains, when he gives the reason why the Scripture ascribes

justification to faith alone: “Namely, because,” says he, “in faith

it is more manifested, that man is justified not by his own virtue, but

by the merit of Christ. For as in beholding the serpent God placed healing

in the desert, because the looking indicated more that the men were healed

by the virtue of the serpent, not of any personal work, or of any medicine;

thus faith shows that sinners are justified

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by the virtue and merit of Christ, in whom believing they are saved, not by any

virtue and merit of their own. And it is the reason, why justification is ascribed to

faith especially by Paul, who strives to exclude from justification the works of the

law, and human merit or efficacy, and to place it in the virtue and merit of Christ

alone; therefore he makes mention of faith in Christ. This neither repentance, nor

love, nor hope have, for faith is carried more immediately and distinctly to it, by

whose virtue we are justified, etc.”

Although the sacraments are external means and instruments applying on

the part of God the promise of grace and justification, this does not

hinder faith from being called the internal instrument and means on the

part of man for receiving this benefit offered in the word and sealed by

the sacraments.

What justifies as an instrument, does not forthwith justify as a work,

although that instrument is a work. Because it is one thing for it to be

a work, and another to justify as a work: what justifies as a work, ought

to be the meritorious cause of justification, but what justifies as an

instrument, does not justify meritoriously, but only apprehensively and

receptively, not by giving, but by receiving. The action of faith,

therefore, justifies us, but not as an action simply, as if it were our

righteousness with God, but in relation to its object, inasmuch as it

receives Christ. As the extension of the beggar’s hand is indeed the act

of the beggar prescribed by the rich man, still as an act it does not enrich

the beggar, but inasmuch as in this way he applies to himself and makes

his own the gift of the rich man.

Although faith is called the work of God, John 6:29, it does not follow

that it justifies as a work. Because although it is enjoined by God, and

in this sense is called the work of God, and is due from man that he may

obtain life: it is not on this account due as the meritorious cause of

that life, but only as

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a means and instrument receptive of the righteousness of Christ, which is the true

cause of life. And thus it is called by Christ imitatively; and by allusion to the

Jewish sense, who sought life by the works of the law: What must we do, said they,

that we may work the works of God? To this legal question Jesus answers, not

legally, but evangelically, yet in a legal style, taking the legal phrase from the

expression of the Jews, and applying it to his discourse, This is the work of God,

that ye believe, intimating that no further work was necessary to acquire salvation,

but that faith was substituted in the place of all works for the reception of it; as if

he said, Work earnestly, only believe, this is work, this is labor. Evidently as to a

sick man seeking by what medicine he is about to be healed, if the physician

answers, This is the medicine, which I prescribe to you, Keep quiet and confide in

me: he does not wish to intimate that that rest and confidence are any remedies

to cure him, but he means only this, that there is no need of medicine. Thus the

Scripture often ascribes the names of things, to which men attribute falsely a

great efficacy and value, to those things which are truly efficacious and valuable,

as the gospel is called law, because what the law sought, the gospel gives; what the

Jews vainly sought in the law, is obtained by the gospel. Thus regeneration is

called circumcision, Phil. 3:3, believers sons of Abraham, love and piety fasting,

Isa. 58, and faith a work.

But we think it ought not to be anxiously inquired, whether faith stands

here in the relation of an instrument, or also of a condition, as some

think. Because both may be ascribed to it: provided the condition is not

understood as that in view of which God justifies man in the legal covenant:

for in this sense it cannot be called a condition, unless we agree with

the Socinians and Remonstrants, who hold that faith, or the act of

believing, is admitted by God by a gracious acceptation

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for a perfect righteousness, which we have just now refuted; but broadly, for all

that is required on our part to obtain this benefit, whether it has the relation of a

cause properly-so-called, or only instrumental. For thus as that condition has the

relation of an instrument; so the instrument has the relation of a condition on our

part, without which justification cannot be granted. Moreover concerning the

manner in which faith concurs to justification, and concerning its threefold act,

dispository, justificatory and consolatory, see what was said in Topic 15. Quest. 12.

Th. 4.

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8.

Justification by Faith Alone

Does faith alone justify? We affirm against the Romanists.

This question also lies between us and the Romanists, who not only corrupt the

true mode of the justification of faith, by making the instrumental cause

meritorious, or at least dispositive, but by connecting with it the other virtues

both as attendants and companions in this act. Whence arose the controversy

concerning faith alone justifying, which as it is of no less importance than the

preceding, so it is agitated with no less warmth of spirit.

This question is not of recent birth; but even from the very beginning

of the Christian religion, by the false apostles, or Judaizing Christians,

who did not with full front attack the faith as the Pharisees, but on the

side, by a deadly mixture associating the law with the gospel, Moses with

Christ, and faith with works in the matter of justification, so that man

should be justified not by faith alone, but at the same time by works also.

Against them the apostle disputes in his Epistles to the Galatians,

Philippians, and

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Colossians. This is urged by the Romanists of this day, who hold that with faith,

hope, love, penitence, the purpose of a new life concur to justification. Canon, ix.

Concil. Trident., “If any one shall say that the wicked are justified by faith alone,

so as to understand that nothing else is required to cooperate for the obtainment

of the grace of justification and is necessary from no part, that he should be

prepared and disposed by a motion of his own will, let him be accursed.” This is

more fully set forth in chap. v. and vi., where the mode and necessity of

preparation for justification are treated of.

But that the state of the question may be more easily understood, we must

remark, that a twofold trial can be entered into by God with man; either

by the law, inasmuch as he is viewed as guilty of violating the law by

sin, and thus comes under the accusation and condemnation of the law; or

by the gospel, inasmuch as he is accused by Satan of having violated the

gospel covenant, and so is supposed to be an unbeliever, and impenitent

or a hypocrite, who has not testified by works the faith he has professed

with his mouth. Now to this twofold trial a twofold justification ought

to answer, not in the Romish sense, but in a very different: The first,

by which man is absolved from the guilt of sin on account of the

righteousness of Christ imputed to us and apprehended by faith. The other

by which he is freed from the charge of incredulity and hypocrisy, and

declared to be a true believer and child of God, who has fulfilled the

gospel covenant, if not perfectly as to degree, still sincerely as to parts,

and answered to the divine call by the exercise of faith and piety. The

first is justification properly so called; the other is only a declaration

of it. That is justification of cause a priori, this is justification of sign, or of effect a posteriori declaratively. In that, faith alone can have a place because it alone apprehends the righteousness of Christ, by

whose merit we are freed from the condemnation

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of the law; in this, works also are required, as the effects and signs of faith, by

which its truth and sincerity are declared against the accusation of unbelief and

hypocrisy. For as faith justifies a person, so works justify faith.

The question is not concerning justification a posteriori and declaratively in the fatherly and gospel trial, whether faith alone

without works concurs to it: for we confess that works come in here with

faith, yea, that works only are properly regarded, because it is concerned

with the justification of faith, which can be gathered from no other source

more certainly than by works as its effects and indubitable proofs. But

concerning justification a priori, which frees us from the legal trial, which is concerned with the justification of the wicked and the perfect

righteousness, which can be opposed to the curse of the law, and acquire

for us a right to life, whether works come into consideration here with

faith, as the Romanists hold, or whether faith alone, as we maintain?

2. The question is not, whether faith alone justifies to the exclusion,

either of the grace of God, or the righteousness of Christ, or the Word

and sacraments, by which the blessing of justification is presented and

sealed to us by God, which we maintain are necessarily required here; but

only to the exclusion of every other virtue and habit on our part. Whence

the Romanists have no reason for accusing us of confusion in this argument,

as if we ascribed justification at one time to the grace of God, at another

to the blood of Christ, and then again to faith. For all these as they

are mutually subordinated in a different class of cause, consist with each

other in the highest degree.

3. The question is not, Whether solitary faith, that is, separated from

the other virtues, justifies, which we grant could not easily be the case,

since it is not even true and living faith, but whether it alone concurs

to the act of

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justification, which we assert: as the eye alone sees, but not when torn out of the

body. Thus the article alone does not determine the subject, but the predicate,

that is, faith only does not justify, but faith justifies alone: the coexistence of love

in him who is justified is not denied, but its coefficiency or cooperation in

justification. 4. The question is not, whether the faith which justifies works by

love, because otherwise it would not be living but dead; but whether by which it

justifies, or in the act itself of justification it is to be considered under such a

relation which we deny.

Whence the question returns to this, Does faith justify, not as it is

objectively the doctrine of salvation, but subjectively as it assents to

that saving doctrine and applies it to itself; not as we promise to do

something, but as we rest upon the promises in Christ as sufficient, but

in respect to function, or efficiency; not by way of preparation with other

virtues, or of merit, but relatively after the manner of an instrument,

apprehending the satisfaction of Christ, and judicially applying it. The

Romanists deny, we assert.

Firstly, because man is justified by faith without works, therefore by

faith alone. The reason of the consequence is manifest, because there are

not more modes of justifying than these two, by faith and by works, and

thus, one being removed, the other must not only necessarily be left, but

also alone, otherwise the enumeration would not be legitimate. Now why

could the apostle so often and so expressly institute an antithesis

between faith and works in this matter, if works could concur with faith

in any way to the act of justification? Would he not in this particular

have occasioned believers to err, by removing works absolutely and simply

from it, if they contribute anything towards it? Let the various passages

in

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which exclusives are employed, be carefully examined, and the thing will be

clearer than the mid-day sun. Rom. 3:28, “We conclude that a man is justified by

faith without the deeds of the law,” Eph. 2:8, “By grace are ye saved, through faith;

and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works;” And more clearly,

Gal. 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the

faith of Jesus Christ;” where it is certain that the particle is adversative and

exclusive, as often elsewhere, (Matt. 12:4 and 24:36, Mark 13:32, John 17:12, Rev.

9:4 and 21:27) from the force of the immediate opposition of faith and works,

which mutually displace each other. Nor can the Romanists themselves deny this.

Estius says, the most learned interpreters follow this opinion; which Salmero,

Justinian and others confirm. To no purpose, therefore, do others pretend that

ean mē is here exceptive, with the meaning, that a man is not justified by works,

except faith in Christ approaches to works. Because this is the very thing which

Paul opposes against the false-apostles, who maintained that not works alone

could justify a man, but mingled faith with works, so that justification might be

ascribed partly to faith, and partly to works, which Paul frequently asserts is

inconsistent as Salmero and Estius acknowledge. No better is the explanation of

Cornelius a Lapide, who thinks that only the works of the law are excluded here,

but not the works of hope, fear and love, which faith begets and produces, which

are under faith, as daughters under a mother. Because we have seen above that all

works are entirely excluded by Paul, not only the ceremonial, but also moral, not

only those performed before grace, but also from grace in the renewed.

Secondly, because by that alone are we justified, by which the

righteousness of Christ is applied to us, who satisfied the law for us.

Now this is done by faith alone; nor does it belong to

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love, or to hope. Not to hope, which does not apprehend but expects the promised

thing. Not to love, which is concerned with the fulfillment of a command, not with

the apprehension of a promise.

Thirdly, because we also are justified in the same way in which Abraham,

the father of believers, was justified, because what was written

concerning him, pertains not only to him but to us also, Rom. 4:24. And

yet Abraham was justified by faith alone, Gen. 15:6, “Abraham believed

in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness,” not of debt,

on account of works preceding faith, or subsequent to it, but of grace,

so that he might not have whereof to glory. For if “Abraham were justified

by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God,” Rom. 4:2, to

wit, he hath not matter for glorying, which is to be drawn from the

preceding verses. The argument is from the destruction of the consequent

to the destruction of the antecedent; if Abraham was justified by works,

he hath whereof to glory in himself, as if he had contributed something

of his own, to which a reward was due in the judgment of God. And yet he

hath not whereof he can glory in himself before God; therefore, he was

not justified by works. Nor can it be said that works preceding faith are

excluded, not those done from faith, on account of which he could have

had glory before God, as he is called a friend of God. Because this is

to gainsay openly and to contradict Paul to his face, who expressly

testifies that Abraham had not whereof to glory before God. For it is

gratuitously and most falsely supposed that only works antecedent to faith

are excluded; because he excludes all works entirely without distinction,

and indeed the works of Abraham not only as an unbeliever, but also a

believer, since this was said of him when he was already a believer and

renewed. Again, he excludes all debt, 4:4; therefore, also every work.

Finally, if he had wished not to exclude

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works done from faith, he ought not to have opposed one working to one

believing simply, but one working without faith to one working from faith, which,

however, he nowhere does.

Fourthly, because we are justified gratuitously and by the grace of God:

therefore by faith alone, because faith alone can consist with grace, Rom.

3:24, 25. Nor is Bellarmine to be listened to, who wishes the particle,

freely, not to exclude merits absolutely, but proper merits, or which are

from us, not from God; because merits arising from prevenient grace, which

are called by them merits of gratuity, are not opposed to grace, unless

we wish grace to contend with grace; nor that it follows hence, that a

man who is justified freely, is justified by faith alone, because as

gratuitous justification does not exclude faith, because it is by grace,

so neither ought it to exclude repentance and love, which are from grace.

For as we have already remarked, the particle, freely, excludes entirely

all merits; for whatever is freely given, that is acquired by no merit.

Nor can the grace which is undue subsist with merit, which makes the pay

due: Whence Rom. 11:6, “If by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise

grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace:

otherwise work is no more work.” Now although faith is not excluded in

justification, it is not on that account from grace, for thus works done

from grace would not have to be excluded, but because it alone above other

virtues has a power receptive of and applicatory to the righteousness of

Christ, and so supposing man to be a sinner and destitute of all

righteousness, excludes all merit.

Fifthly, because “the righteousness of God is said to be revealed from

faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith;” Rom.

1:17, where the apostle intends to prove that the gospel is the power of

God, that is, the sole most efficacious instrument for salvation, in

opposition to the weakness of the law, Rom. 8:3,

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and Heb. 7:19, because in the righteousness of God, not formally and subjectively,

which is in God, but effectively, which God gives to us, not inherent, because it is

said to be manifested without the law by faith, Rom. 3:21, and to be imputed

without works, Rom. 4:6, but imputed, which is opposed to man’s righteousness

and his own works, Rom. 10:3, 4, Phil. 3:9. To wit, the most perfect righteousness

of Christ, which alone can bear the scrutiny of the divine trial, as being divine and

infinite, which is the cause and foundation of life and salvation, is revealed from

faith to faith, that is, is announced by the gospel, so as to be apprehended by faith

alone, because nothing besides faith can concur in the reception of it. Whence he

does not say from faith to works, but from faith to faith, so that to faith alone this

office is wholly ascribed. That Paul may prove this doctrine to be neither absurd

nor new, he confirms it by the prophecy of Habakkuk, 2:4, where he says, “The

just shall live by his faith.” Now although this prophecy refers also to a temporal

blessing, viz., deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, which they would obtain

by the intervention of faith in the divine promise: hence it is referred to by Paul in

the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. 10, to support believers in afflictions; still

because the declaration of the prophet is general concerning faith in the promises

of God, it is rightly applied specially to faith in Christ; and on this account the

more, that the prophets and pious Jews regarded the promise of the Messiah, as

the foundation of all promises. Hence Paul as best knowing the mind of the Holy

Spirit refers it in the Epistle to the Galatians, chap. 3, and in this place to

justification, in order to teach that by faith alone man obtains the righteousness

which brings eternal life to him: “The just shall live by faith,” whether the “by

faith” be referred to the just, with this meaning, He who by faith is just, or to life,

meaning the just lives by faith; for they amount to the same and each is true, that

both he

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who by faith is just, obtains salvation, and again, he who is just, obtains salvation

by faith. In vain, therefore, is it said that Paul understands a living faith and that

it alone is not such, but with works. Because although living faith is never alone in

the person who is justified, still it is alone in the very act of justification, to the

production of which the other virtues can contribute nothing, faith alone claiming

this privilege for itself, as we have before said. Nor better do others wish that life

to be referred to the works, by which faith proves itself alive. Because the design

of the prophet is to teach that faith alone is the means of obtaining salvation, both

temporal and spiritual. And Paul says that this righteousness by faith is

manifested without the law, which cannot be said of the righteousness of works,

but only of the righteousness of faith, which is said of the man believing, not of

one working.

It is one thing for love and works to be required in the person who is

justified, which we grant, another in the act itself, or causality of

justification, which we deny. Nor if works are required as concomitants

of faith, are they on that account determined to be causes of justification

with faith, or to do the very thing which faith does in this matter.

Although the whole force of justifying on the part of man is in faith,

as to the act of apprehension, so that other virtues contribute nothing

to it with faith; it does not follow that faith can justify when they are

absent as well as when they are present, yea, even when the opposite vices

are present; because it is one thing to justify without virtues, that is

separated from them which we deny, another for it to justify alone, but

not separated from them. As it does not follow, the hand alone writes,

the eye alone sees; therefore, as such when torn from the head and the

other members as in the body; the sole force of respiration is in the lungs;

the lungs can respire torn out from the liver and other viscera, equally

as well as when connected with them, which everyone

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sees to be absurd. There are hundreds of things of this kind, which have a certain

proper efficacy and effect, which still, when separated from their adjuncts, lose all

their power. Natural potencies are connected as to existence, but disjoined as to

operation. Light and heat in the sun are most closely connected together, but still

the light alone illuminates, the heat alone warms. Although, therefore, the other

virtues do not justify with faith, still faith cannot justify in their absence, much

less the opposite vices being present; because faith cannot be true, unless in

connection with the virtues, which if they do not contribute as to justification, still

contribute to the existence and life of faith, which the presence of vices would

destroy.

It is one thing for the love of the sinner to be the cause of the remission

of sins a priori; another, to be the effect and proof a posteriori. The latter is affirmed, Luke 7:47, not the former, as we gather—1. From the

scope of the parable, which is to demonstrate which of two debtors, whose

debt the creditor had canceled, ought to love the creditor most, to wit,

in token of gratitude. 2. From the answer of Simon, “I suppose that he,

to whom he forgave most,” where love is placed as following, not as going

before remission. 3. From the end, ver. 47, where a small remission is

put as the cause of a small degree of love, “To whom little is forgiven,

the same loveth little.” 4. From verse 50, where salvation is ascribed

to the faith, not to the love of this woman, “Thy faith hath saved thee;”

nor does the particle hoti stand in the way, because, as is known, it is often only ratiocinative, not causal, the cause of the consequent, not

of the consequence, so as to intimate that thence is known and gathered

that many sins were forgiven her, because she loved much.

When John says, 1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death unto

life, because we love the brethren;” he teaches that love is a proof and

sign of our justification,

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from which we know that we have passed from death unto life, because he who is

in love is in God, who is love, and he who is in God, cannot be in death; but he

does not mean that love is the cause of that translation, which is elsewhere

ascribed to faith, John 5:24. Whence Lorimus and Gagnaeus on this passage well

remark that the causal article denotes the cause, not of the thing but of the

knowledge. On this account even the more, that since God loved, not we God, 1

John 4:10, the justification by which God loved us, ought to precede our love.

Christ, John 14:23, promises the love of the Father, to those who love

him, not affectively, and as to its beginning, as if the love of the Father

than begins, since he loved us before, 1 John 4:10, but effectively, and

as to continuance and increase, because he will prove his love by

distinguished blessings, and console them by a new manifestation of

himself; but this has nothing to do with justification, because to love

Christ and to keep his commands, belongs to a man already constituted in

grace and justified.

The fear of the Lord, to wit, filial and reverential is a consequent of

justification, not a previous disposition to it. Not is it called the

beginning of wisdom, Ps. 111:10, as if it initially disposes to wisdom,

but because it is its head and perfection, as it is said to be in Eccles.

12:13, which begins from it, Prov. 9:10, and ends in it. If it is said

in Sirach 1:21, apōtheisthai hamartēmata, this ought not to be understood of a positive expulsion, as if it introduced either meritoriously, or

dispositively remission of sins, but of a negative, because he, who fears

God, does not indulge in sins, nor give ear to their solicitations.

It is one thing for hope to concur to salvation; another to justification.

The former is asserted in Rom. 5:5, and 8:24, when hope is said not to

make us ashamed, yea, also to save us: because the expectation of salvation

is founded

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upon a hope so certain to be fulfilled in its own time, as if we already possessed

salvation itself: but not the latter; because the object of hope is not the remission

of sins, but the fulfillment of the promised salvation.

Although remission of sins is promised to repentance, because it ought

to accompany faith, and be in him who is justified as a certain condition

requisite from him, because God cannot pardon sin to an impenitent; it

does not follow that it can be said to justify with faith, because it

contributes nothing, neither meritoriously, nor instrumentally, to the

act of justification.

It is one thing for eternal life and the heavenly inheritance to be

referred to works as meritorious causes, or instrumental, of our

justification; another, as effects of faith, and qualities and

dispositions requisite in the subject to be glorified. As it is one thing

to seek why life is given to believers, another, upon what, or what

qualities it depends. The former we deny, because our works of whatever

kind cannot merit life, nor have they the relation of an instrument for

apprehending it. But the latter we grant. Nor is anything different

gathered from Matt. 25:34, 35, where works are not adduced by the judge

as the foundations of the right which they obtain to eternal life, because

the proper cause of that right is indicated in the preceding verses when

they are called ye blessed of my Father, who ought to inherit the kingdom,

that is, possess it by a title of inheritance; but as arguments and

testimonies indubitable a posteriori, from which the truth of their faith could be proved, and the equity of the sentence pronounced, as the particle

gar is not causal, but only ratiocinative.

Since Paul and James were inspired by the same Spirit, they cannot be said

to oppose each other on the doctrine of justification, so that one should

ascribe justification to faith

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alone, and the other to works also. The reconciliation is not difficult, if the design

of each be considered, and the nature of faith, and of justification, concerning

which both treat, be attended to. Paul disputes against the Pharisees, who urged

the merits of works; James against the Libertines and Epicureans, who content

with a profession of faith alone, denied not only the merits of works, but also their

necessity. Against the former Paul rightly urges faith alone for justification.

Against the latter, James properly commends the necessity of works for the

confirmation of justification. Paul speaks of living and efficacious faith, James of

an idle and dead, which cannot be demonstrated by works, chap. 2:18; Paul of

justification a priori and constitutively, James of the same a posteriori and

declaratively, Paul properly constitutes the former in faith alone. James rightly

places the latter in works, by which the reality of our faith and justification is

declared not only before men, but also before God. When, therefore, faith is said

to have wrought with works in Abraham, and by works to have been made perfect,

ver. 22, this ought to be understood in relation to the efficacy of faith, which

exerted itself by works, by which also it was consummated and made perfect; not

essentially, for this it has by its own nature, but declaratively, because it is proven

to be perfect and sincere, just as the power of God is said to be made perfect in

our weakness, 2 Cor. 12:9, that is, known and declared to be perfect. See what else

belongs to this point in our disputation, De Concoritia, Jacobi et Pauli, etc.

It is one thing for works to be connected with faith in the person of the

justified, another, however, in the matter of justification. The former,

we acknowledge, and will afterwards prove, when we discuss the necessity

of good works; but the latter we deny, with Paul, nay, we maintain that

they are wholly incompatible with faith.

Rightly says Augustine, lib. de Fide et Operibus, “Good works do not

precede the one to be justified, but follow the one justified.” Because

since a person is

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justified freely by faith without works, Rom. 3:24, nay, justification is of the

wicked, Rom. 4:5, and 5:6, no good works can be granted, which precede his

justification, as causes, but only which follows, as the effects and fruits springing

from the faith of remission, Luke 7:47, and 1 Tim. 1:5. Nor if vocation, by which

faith and holiness are infused, is prior to justification, does it follow that holiness

no less than faith is prior to it; because holiness is indeed infused, but in its own

order and by faith, Acts 15:9, faith however concurs to justification before it does

to sanctification. If remission is sometimes promised to repentance, this is indeed

to it, as a condition not antecedent or concomitant by reason of contradiction, but

only consequent as to new obedience.

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9.

The Time of Justification

Was justification made from eternity, or is it made in time? And, is it an

individual act, taking place at one and the same time?

The opinions of theologians about this question vary. Some maintain that it is an

immanent act in God, which was performed from eternity; others that it is

transient terminating in us, and which takes place only in time and in this life.

And there are some who hold that it is postponed to the last and decretory day, in

which all must stand before the solemn and public tribunal of Christ to hear the

sentence of absolution or of condemnation from his lips. Now although there is

an agreement on both sides in the substance of the thing, and a disagreement

only in the mode of the thing, still it is of no little importance to the accurate

knowledge of the subject, to know what is the true opinion to be held here.

The first opinion is that of those who hold that justification preceded

our birth, and was made in eternity, because they conceive it to be an

immanent and internal act in God.

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As, however, nothing new can happen to God in time, they think it was made in

him from eternity, and is ascribed to faith only as to cognizance and sense,

because it leads us into the knowledge of him and makes us certain of it.

But although we do not deny that our justification was decreed even from

eternity, as nothing takes place in time, which was not constituted by

him from eternity; still we do not think, speaking accurately,

justification itself can be called eternal. Because the decree of

justification is one thing, justification itself another, as the will to

save and sanctify is one thing, salvation and sanctification itself

another. The will or decree to justify certain persons is indeed eternal,

and precedes faith itself; but actual justification takes place in time

and follows faith.

Secondly, Paul expressly confirms this in the chain of salvation,

enumerating in order the benefits flowing to the elect from the eternal

love of God, where he puts vocation before justification, as something

antecedent, Rom. 8:30, whom he called, them he justified. Nor have those

various passages a different meaning, in which we are said to be justified

through and by faith, then that faith is a something prerequisite to

justification. This could not be said, if justification was done from

eternity. For it is weak and foreign to the meaning of Paul to refer these

things to the sense of justification only.

Thirdly, the nature of the thing itself proves this. For, since

justification, or remission of sins, necessarily involves a deliverance

from the obligation to punishment which sins deserved, and no one can

obtain it without faith and repentance, it is evident that such a

justification could not have been made from eternity but only in time,

when the man actually believes and repents. Otherwise it would follow that

he, who is justified and consequently has passed from death unto life,

and become a child of God, and an heir of eternal

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life, still remains in death and is a child of wrath; because he, who is not yet

converted and lies in sin, remains in death, 1 John 3:14, and is of the devil, 1 John

3:8, and in a state of condemnation, Gal. 5:21.

Finally, since justification is a blessing of God, while a blessing cannot

pass to us, and be actually bestowed upon us, except in time, it is clear

that it is not to be conceived of after the manner of an immanent and

internal act in God; but after the manner of a transient, arising from

God, and passing ever and terminating upon the creature, not that it may

subjectively inhere in him, as the Romanists falsely hold, because this

pertains to sanctification; but that it may adhere to him, and the creature

has an objective relation to it, while the absolving sentence is intimated

to him by the Holy Spirit. If grace is said to have been given to us in

Christ before the world began, 2 Tim. 1:9, by reason of destination,

because from eternity God decreed to give it to us in time, it does not

follow that it can be said to have been really bestowed, because the decree

indeed causes us to obtain in time a right to life certainly and infallibly,

but not that we can say we already obtained it actually; it causes that

we should be justified, but not to be already justified.

But as justification cannot be conceived to have taken place from eternity,

before the ages, so neither ought it to be thrown forward to the

consummation of the world, as others hold, as if God only then exercises

properly the act of a judge, both in the pardon of believers, and in the

condemnation of the wicked. For thus the declaration of justification is

falsely confounded with justification itself. For although the heavenly

judge, we are told, will then sit on his throne of glory, to exercise the

last solemn act of judgment, as much in grace as in justice, in the sight

of heaven and earth, this does not prevent that judgment from commencing

in the present life. Nay, this must necessarily be supposed, since

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that final judgment is nothing else than a public and solemn manifestation of

preceding judgments. And as Scripture everywhere sets before us the examples of

God’s judgments, public as well as private, over the wicked and rebellious, such as

the flood, the destruction of Sodom, the overthrow of the Egyptians, and the like:

to refer these to mere chastisements of God, tending towards the improvement

and salvation of those upon whom they were sent, is to contradict the whole tenor

of Scripture, and rashly to confound the medicinal chastisements of believers,

which are sent upon them for instruction by God, as a merciful Father, with the

punishments of the wicked, which are inflicted by God, as an angry judge, to

punish and avenge himself of their sins, which has thus far been unheard of in

theological schools. So that he is evidently a stranger to the Scriptures, who does

not know that God is often set forth as justifying believers in this life, as is evident

from the examples of Abraham, Gen. 15:6, of David, Ps. 32:1, 2, 5, Rom 4:6, 7, of

the sinful woman, Luke 7:48, of the publican, Luke 18:14, and of all believers,

Rom. 5:1. Not to say now that that opinion is hurtful to the consolation of

believers, which springs from no other source more certainly than from a sense of

the grace of God and his justification. For how otherwise could they have the

confidence in which they glory and exult on account of their justification, and

enjoy unspeakable peace and joy?

This opinion, then, being dismissed, we embrace the middle one, which

makes justification to take place in this life in the moment of effectual

calling, by which the sinner is transferred from a state of sin to a state

of grace, and is united to Christ, his head, by faith. For hence it is

that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him by God, by whose merit

apprehended by faith he is absolved from his sins, and obtains a right

to life: which absolving sentence the Spirit pronounces

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in his heart, when he says, Be of good courage, son, thy sins are pardoned.

Further, this justification can be regarded in different ways. 1. Actively,

in the part of God intimating by the Spirit the absolving sentence in the

heart of the believer, and judicially from the throne of grace, Heb. 4:16,

pronouncing it upon us, and passively, on our part, inasmuch as we admit

and receive that absolving sentence delivered in the court of conscience

by the Holy Spirit with faith, joy, and the protestation of gratitude.

Secondly, universally as to state, when we are first received into union

with Christ, and his righteousness is imputed to us, passing from a state

of sin into a state of grace, the guilt of all preceding sins is actually

taken away, and a remedy given to us in the righteousness of Christ against

future sins, and specially as to particular acts of sins, into which we

afterwards fall, which also need a particular absolution: which as often

as it is intimated to us in the court of conscience, so often the believer

is by repentance turned again to God, and by faith applies to himself

Christ’s righteousness. In this sense we are commanded to seek remission

of sins every day, not only with regard to the sense, but also with regard

to the thing itself, because sins cannot be forgiven unless committed,

as we remarked before.

Thirdly, justification can be viewed in a twofold aspect, either as to

the eternal destination in the decree, in which sense grace is said to

have been given to us in Christ before the world began, 2 Tim. 1:9, and

God is said to have predestinated us unto the adoption in time; which again

can be regarded, either as to obtainment, which was made by the death of

Christ on the cross, referred to in Rom. 5:9, 10, we were justified and

reconciled to God by the blood of Christ,

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and Christ reconciled all things to God through the blood of the cross, Col. 1:20.

And elsewhere Christ is said to have been raised again for our justification, Rom.

4:25, because as in him dead, we are dead, so in him raised and justified, we are

justified, that is, we have a sure and indubitable pledge and foundation of our

justification, because for no other cause was he justified by the Spirit, 1 Tim. 3:16,

except that we might be justified in him. Nor in a different sense does Paul say, 2

Cor. 5:19, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing

their trespasses unto them,” to wit, inasmuch as in Christ dying the Father had

the foundation of reconciliation, by which he was made more propitious to the

world of the elect, collected as well from Jews as from the Gentiles, so that he

does not impute to them their sins, which he imputed to Christ, but by absolving

them from their sins, he may justify them also in him. Or as to application, which

is made in the heart by an intimation of the absolving sentence, referred to in

Matt. 9:2. Or in general as to the state of the believer, when he is first called, or in

particular as to the act, when he obtains the pardon of particular sins. Or as to the

sense and certainty of it, arising in us from a reflex act of faith, called consolatory.

Or, finally, as to its declaration, which should be made immediately after death,

Heb. 9:27, and publicly on the last day, which is not so much justification as a

solemn declaration of the justification once made, and an adjudication of the

reward, in accordance with the preceding justification.

Hence it is evident, in what sense justification can be called an

individual act; not on our part, and with respect to the sense of it, which

is produced by various and repeated acts, according as this sense can be

interrupted, or increased, or diminished, by reason of interfering sins;

but on the part of God, not only by reason of his decree, by which our

justification

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was decreed, and by reason of his merit, by which he obtained it, but also by

reason of the application, when the absolving sentence is intimated to us, which is

done by a unique act, not by many successively, just as inherent righteousness is

wont to be infused into us; although this act is often applied to particular

every-day sins.

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10.

The Unity of Justification

Unity, perfection and certainty are the three principal adjuncts of justification,

concerning which disputes exist. Of these we must speak briefly, because we have

elsewhere discussed them partially.

Unity can be regarded in two ways, either relatively to believers among

themselves, or absolutely, with respect to him who is justified. In the

former sense it is said to be one in species, or equal in all believers

of all times and places, because God justifies all believers in the same

manner, viz., by his grace, and the merit of Christ through faith. “Seeing

it is one God,” says the apostle, Rom. 3:30, “which shall justify the

circumcision by faith and the circumcision through faith,” that is, who

justifies the Jews as well as the Gentiles by faith. For since all are

obnoxious to sin and condemnation, ver. 19, and destitute of the glory

of God, ver. 23, there is no other method of justification than by faith,

as the apostle proves fully in the same place, and confirms by the examples

of David and of Abraham, Rom. 4, as also of all the saints of

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the Old Testament mentioned in Heb. 11, who by faith are said to have pleased

God, ver. 6, and so have obtained that they were righteous, ver. 4, and to have

become heirs of the righteousness which is by faith, ver. 7. Nor either in the Old

or New Testament can there be found any dissimilar example of a person justified

in another way. Whence Peter says, Acts 10:43, “To him give all the prophets

witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission

of sins” and Acts 15:11, through the grace of Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

Because Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, Heb. 13:8. He is the Way,

and the Truth and the Life, and no one can come to the Father except by him,

John 14:6.

For the objections brought forward here by the Socinians against the

identity of the justification of the believers of the Old and New Testament,

see Topic 12. Question 5. The Unity of the Covenant of Grace, where they

are discussed.

Now although the same benefit as to substance was common to the believers

of the Old Testament no less than to those of the New, as they had true

remission of sins in and on account of Christ, still, there was a

multiplied difference as to degree and sense, inasmuch as it is far more

clearly revealed and more fully and efficaciously felt by us now, as was

proved in the same place, and in Question 12.

Secondly, the same justification is one numerically in individuals.

Because it is not promoted successively after the manner of sanctification

by repeated acts, but is finished in one judicial act, and brings to the

believer the remission of all sins. Whence the Romanists from their

fictitious hypothesis concerning physical justification by an infusion

of righteousness, falsely make it two-fold, the first, by which a man from

being unjust is made just by an infusion of righteousness, the second,

by which from being just he is made more just by the increase of

righteousness; because the foundation having been

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once overturned, as was done above, whatever is built upon it falls. Nor does the

passage in Rev. 22:11 favor this error, because, as we have already said, it does not

treat of the infusion of righteousness, but either of the sense and declaration of

righteousness once gained, which is retained by the exercise of righteousness, or

of its special application to every-day sins.

The distinction between active and passive justification points out

indeed the truth of the terms from which and to which, viz., of God who justifies, and of man who is justified, but does not change the degree

or species. For by the same sentence by which God justified us, while he

intimates it to the conscience, we are also passively justified, when it

is received by us through faith.

The blessing of justification and the right to it differ from the feeling

and the knowledge of it. There is no cutting off or renewal of the former,

because it is a gift without repentance. The latter, however, may be

interrupted and restored, according to the various increases and

decreases of sanctification. And although that sense may be interrupted

in grievous sins, and be recovered by various and repeated acts, still

the blessing of justification remains in him always the same.

Although our justification will be fully declared on the last day, our

good works also being brought forward as the sign of proof of its truth,

Matt. 25, still falsely would any one maintain from this a two-fold gospel

justification, one from faith in this life, which is the first, and the

other and second from works on the day of judgment, as some hold, agreeing

too much with the Romanists on this point. Because the sentence to be

pronounced by the supreme judge will not be so much a new justification,

as the solemn and public declaration of a sentence once passed, and its

execution by the assignment of the life promised with respect to an

innocent

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person from the preceding justification, so that it is nothing else than an

adjudicatory sentence of the possession of the kingdom of heaven from the right

given before through justification. And if works are then brought forward, they

are not adduced as the foundation of a new justification to be obtained then, but

as signs, marks and effects of our true faith, and of our sole justification by it.

It is one thing to apply justification often and to extend it to sins of

daily occurrence, in which sense we are commanded to seek remission of

sins every day; another, to repeat and renew justification often. The

former we grant, but not the latter. Nor is there need that a new

justification should take place as often as the believer falls into a new

sin. It is sufficient that the justification once made, which if not

formally, contains virtually and generically the remission of all sins,

be applied and extended specifically and determinatively to this or that

sin, by an intimation of the Holy Spirit, and the apprehension of faith.

Although remission of sins ought to be applied often to daily sins, yet

falsely would anyone thence gather that sins once discharged revive and

return again by subsequent sins, as some of the Romanists hold; since it

is an unchangeable gift of God. Nor does the parable of that ungrateful

servant, who, after a greater amount had been yielded to him by his lord,

wished to deal cruelly with his fellow-servant, who owed him far less,

and who on that account was delivered to the tormentors till he should

pay all that was due unto him, which is recorded in Matt. 18:23–35, prove

this. Because it pertains to nothing else than to show that the remission

of sins proposed conditionally does not belong to him, in whom the

condition is wanting. The design of the parable, which is to be regarded

here simply, is no other than to teach that the mercy of God is not

exercised towards the unmerciful, nor are sins pardoned by God, except

to those who

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forgive the offences of others, and to show this the more efficaciously, the lord is

opposed here to his servant an immense sum to a minute, and the highest

clemency to extreme inhumanity.

2. Perfection belongs to justification, according to which it is so full

and absolute intensively, both with respect to evils taken away and

blessings acquired, that it is free as to itself from increase or decrease,

nor does it admit of more and less, although as to the apprehension and

sense of it, our faith advances so gradually as to have even its

progressions and defects. Nor if the faith by which we are justified is

active and remitted, does it follow that justification itself is equally

intermittent, because it does not justify by itself and properly, but only

instrumentally and relatively, as the beholding of the brazen serpent did

not cease equally to heal, although some looked at it more intently and

strongly than others.

3. Its certainty is twofold: one, of the object in itself by the

immutability and perseverance, by which God never recalls the pardon once

given, on account of the immutability of his grace, justice and promise

confirmed by an oath, Heb. 6:17, 18. For the gifts of God bestowed upon

the elect, and the calling according to his purpose, are without

repentance, Rom. 11:29. Whence God never condemns and disinherits those

whom he has once justified and made heirs. The other is the certainty of

the subject, which refers to the sense of justification, which although

it is possible from the nature of faith, yea, even necessary to bring peace

and consolation to our souls, still is not always in the same degree, but

more perfect or imperfect according to the proportion of faith, so that

there never was a believer, not even excepting Abraham, Gen. 17:17, nor

David, Ps. 42:5, 11, who did not have to struggle with doubts concerning

grace. Now each of these certainties belong to justification has already

been shown fully, when we discussed the perseverance and certainty of

faith, Topic 15. Questions 16 and 17.